


Clarity of Sight

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: MST3K Alternate Universes [18]
Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000, Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Fate & Destiny, First Time, Jonah has no idea what's going on but that doesn't stop him from doing it anyways, Kinga has secrets, Max is way too nice to be a vocational anti-necromancer but here we are, Multi, Post-Canon, and secrets about her visions, she also has visions, you don't have to have read the books but I hope you'll want to after you read this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-04 04:34:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Some things you don't want to be a matter of public record. Being Seen in a compromising position-- with two other people!-- was entirely mortifying, but something big is just out of Sight and she needs to go where the vision showed her.  That one of the two people is known is... entirely less mortifying. That the other one has never been Seen is curious. She has no idea how curious he will turn out to be.





	1. Compromising Visions

**Author's Note:**

> My writing is getting increasingly and increasingly niche and self-indulgent and I really don't even care because I'm having so much fun writing this.
> 
> If you haven't read the Old Kingdom books, I hope this will get you to check them out! One of the heroines is a librarian. She is dear to my heart.
> 
> I made a playlist to go with this fic. [You can find it here.](https://open.spotify.com/user/speccygeek/playlist/2wSqr55NIVEFtVKxBK4MV0?si=hVg6g_EkSKqdkFpXoN6q2w)

Kinga's Paperwing had barely slowed to a stop before she could see Blindyl standing far back enough in the hangar to be covered by the Charter spells for warmth to defray the bitter cold of the wind blowing over the glacier, hundreds of paces below the platform off which the Paperwings launched. Blyndel, who called the Clayr to the Nine Day Watch as they were Seen at their posts. Kinga sighed and climbed out of her Paperwing reluctantly, one hand trailing over the green and silver fuselage of the conveyance that was equal parts bird and canoe. The Paperwing's fierce yellow eyes blinked slowly and then subsided into motionless laminated paper, until it was awakened for the next patrol. A patrol which Kinga was irritated to be drawn away from, if she were honest. She knew what the Voice of the Watch had called her for. Kinga was, in her own words, a slightly defective Clayr by any measure. Nearly all of the seers of the Glacier were pale blonde women with ice blue eyes and nut brown skin. Kinga's red hair and fair skin automatically set her apart from the thousands of cousins, and her Sight was limited greatly compared to many of those cousins.

There was only one reason Kinga was called to the Watch. For alone among the Clayr, her Sight only ever granted her glimpses of one person. It could have been worse, she told herself often. Her Sight could have been limited to a turnip farmer or some equally uninspiring personage. At least, if there was only one face her talent would show her, it was an important face.

The Abhorsen was in trouble again, or would be shortly. And with her hands linked to forty-eight other Clayr, Kinga's Sight would show what that trouble was, and what aid he'd need that could be sent from the Clayr or from the capital at Belisaere.

Of course, she'd been out on patrol since dawn, and the summons to the Watch meant that they'd all be waiting on her to begin. After Kinga accepted the ivory token from Blindyl, she gripped it between her teeth and started her headlong dash down the Starmount Stair, trying to shed her flight uniform of furs and green glass goggles as she flew down the stairs skipping steps and launching herself down several at a time to get to a platform, trusting her own familiarity with the oddly spaced stairs to save her from a twisted ankle or worse on her way down. When she made it to her room, she flung the furs off and onto the floor and dragged her white robe from the wardrobe. One hand fumbled through a drawer for the crown of moonstones that completed the uniform of a Clayr on Watch, and she spared thirty seconds to shove some dried fruit in her mouth, chewing hastily as the direction of her running took her to the heart of the glacier and the chamber there where the Sight would be focused.

To Kinga's surprise, she wasn't the last one in the room, though she was the only one who showed up sweaty and short of breath. Sanar-- or maybe it was Ryelle-- turned to Kinga with the wand declaring her to be Voice of the Watch in one hand and an amused smile on her lips.

"You're not late," she said mildly, and Kinga took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Did you see much of interest on patrol?"

"Yes," Kinga said. "And I'll be making my report the moment I leave here. But when I'm called I know better than to prioritize anything over that."

"Duty calls," Ryelle-- or perhaps Sanar-- said as she came up behind Kinga, looking as flawless and unruffled as her twin with the second wand in her hand. Kinga was more than a little in awe of the pair of them-- not only because the strength of their Sight meant they were often the Voice of the Watch and nearly always on the Watch when they weren't, but because they were both skilled Paperwing pilots who had Seen Kinga on the flight corps before Kinga's Sight even woke. She'd had little time to worry about the lateness of her awakening when she was kept busy with Charter magic until her Sight finally awoke when she was thirteen years old.

It had been Ryelle who discovered the subject of Kinga's visions when the trend quickly became apparent. The Clayr and the Abhorsen and the royal family were in close contact anyways, all the bloodlines of the Great Charters united in defense of the Charter against the corrosive influence of Free Magic. Still, in the seven years she'd spent catching glimpses of the Abhorsen's life, she'd never met him in person. She'd never Seen them together, and she wasn't entirely sure what to say to a person she felt she knew very well despite having never spoken with him.

The pattern had been established: a Nine Day Watch would catch a glimpse of him and Kinga would get the ivory token summoning her to the viewing chamber to clarify the visions. She'd identify the threat, be it Dead or Free Magic or once, memorably, an assassination plot with no magical influence at all; the Clayr would send warning or reinforcements as needed, and the Abhorsen's life went on when there might have been a question of whether it would.

"What's he up to now?" Kinga asked as she took her place in the first circle of Clayr, scrubbing the palms of her hands against her robe before extending them to the cousins on either side. "I haven't Seen him in days."

"He's scouting along the Wall," Sanar-or-Ryelle said. "Apparently someone is raising Charter Stones south of Barhedrin."

"The King?" Only one of royal blood could create or repair a Charter Stone. King Touchstone had spent his long reign repairing the Stones that had been broken during the two centuries of the Interregnum, and Prince Sameth had raised new ones around Red Lake, but none of the royal line had stirred from Belisaere over the course of the long, severe winter that had only recently released its grip on the Old Kingdom. Both Sanar and Ryelle shook their heads, and Kinga's brow furrowed. "Who, then?"

"We have yet to See the person responsible," Ryelle-or-Sanar said, and she smiled at Kinga. "Hopefully your participation will provide insight."

"Let's See what there is to See, then," Kinga said, and as one the Clayr clasped hands and turned their faces up to the huge sheet of ice that hung over the viewing chamber. As Charter marks drifted upwards from the circle of Clayr to rise into the ice, Sanar and Ryelle produced the window of ice that would allow a single Clayr to make sense of the vision that forty-nine seers worked together to produce. Kinga, standing slightly behind the pair of them, caught maybe half of what the one standing in front of the window could see, and she nearly dropped her hands at the sight of the Abhorsen-- familiar round face with worry lines tracing his dark eyes, cropped hair already greying and skin paper-pale from his frequent forays into Death-- laughing with Kinga herself, red hair bound up in braids the way it was right now, the way she always wore it when she flew patrols-- and one other person, a very tall and gangly young man with messy dark hair wearing clear lenses in front of his eyes in Ancelstierran fashion. None of them were wearing clothes and they all looked very... very relaxed and unafraid. Kinga doubted the truth of this vision even though she knew full well that it was uncorrupted.

The vision retreated to show the context: a four-poster bed in a large bedroom in a white-walled building with a red tile roof on an island at the brink of a waterfall, Abhorsen's House as safe from the Dead as any place could be surrounded by several hundred paces of swift water and walls just higher than the River Ratterlin could get at maximum flood. The trees on either bank of the Ratterlin were in late spring leaves, delicate green announcing the date as no later than a couple of weeks from now. A platform on the east side of the island held two Paperwings, painted in the Abhorsen's blue and silver and the Clayr's green and silver.

The Nine Day Watch was so named because at a normal gathering of Clayr it could take nine days to focus Sight into vision. Kinga never spent more than three days on Watch, usually much less, and as the Clayr lowered their hands and the flood of Charter marks became a trickle and then ceased, Kinga seriously contemplated bolting like an ice otter and finding a small hole to hide in until this awkwardness could be forgotten. Before she could put action to thought, though, Sanar and Ryelle took her gently by the upper arms and steered her in the opposite direction of the exit most of the Clayr were taking.

"You said you've been bored," Ryelle said, finally allowing Kinga to sort out which twin was which, and she smiled. "It doesn't look like you'll be bored much longer."

"What did you See?" Kinga asked, wondering how forthright the Voice would be with her. She shouldn't have been able to see any part of it, and what she had seen filled her with the same sense of potential that could easily tip into disaster of a highly advanced Charter-spell, the feeling that one misspoken word would certainly spell her doom. Ryelle and Sanar shared a look, and then Ryelle turned another smile on Kinga.

"You will travel to Abhorsen's House. Soon, I believe. There will be a third person with you, a young man we've never Seen before, possibly from Ancelstierre."

"What's the danger, then? Is he a spy? Why would the Abhorsen bring a spy to his refuge?"

"He didn't look like a spy," Ryelle said slowly. "He looked like... more of a lover than anything."

"A lover? Whose lover?" Kinga didn't know where she was being led. The ways into and out of the viewing chamber weren't always the same, or predictable, but the twins drew her along confidently.

"Your lover. Or his lover. Or-- well. It looked like the three of you were... comfortable with each other."

"That's... unorthodox," Kinga said uncomfortably. In the Clayr's Glacier, where men were rare, it was common for women to pair off, but Kinga couldn't think of anywhere in the realm where it was usual for men to do the same. She wondered if it was a usual thing across the Wall. "So what's the threat? It wouldn't have been Seen if it weren't significant." She hoped. It had to be significant, right? Surely there was a reason for this mortifying vision. They came to a door, and Sanar and Ryelle turned to fix Kinga with identical concerned glances.

"We should have introduced you before now," Sanar said. "The Abhorsen has been here several times. But no one Saw you with him before today, and now you must make your own introduction when you catch up with him at the Wall."

"The Wall? But you said Abhorsen's House--"

"He's been working his way west from the Crossing Point," Ryelle said. "You should have little trouble finding him. Just follow the unmapped Charter Stones until you catch sight of his Paperwing."

"I don't understand--" Sanar pushed the door open and the twins whisked Kinga through to discover that they were in the Upper Refectory and she was _starving_.

"Eat," Sanar said. "Then get ready to fly. If you leave within the hour you can make it to the Wall before sundown."

"Barely," Kinga said.

"You call the wind better than nearly anyone in the Paperwing corps," Ryelle said, and Sanar elbowed her gently.

"I hope you're not counting yourself as that nearly anyone."

"Oh!"

"Because Kinga is slightly better than you are."

"I wouldn't make that claim," Kinga said, lying through her teeth but still too impressed to challenge Ryelle's adept weather-witchery with her own words. "But if I must leave now, I must leave now."

"Eat first," Sanar said. "Your pack will be ready for you in the Paperwing hangar after you change back into flight clothes."

"And cousin--" Ryelle took Kinga by the shoulders and bent to kiss her cheeks. "Have fun with it," she said warmly, and Kinga's cheeks flared red. The twins left her to her lunch, and Kinga tried not to pick apart the fragment of the vision she'd caught as she picked apart the roll she'd taken with her meal.

Her and the Abhorsen. Well then. It wasn't like she never entertained the thought before. After all, she'd been catching glimpses of his life since she was thirteen. When she'd been younger it seemed almost romantic, the fidelity of her Sight to this one man, and it wasn't like he was all that much older than her, he just looked older than he was because crossing into Death as often as he did took a toll on those who walked the chill river. He was one of the most important people in the entire realm. Kinga was a little bit important because she was a Clayr, but there were about three thousand Clayr in the Glacier. There was only one Abhorsen, and a heavy responsibility lay on his shoulders: the defense of the realm from Free Magic sorcerers and necromancers raising the Dead to walk again in Life, hungry for blood and the spark of life to bind them more firmly to their monstrous physical forms, ever fighting the current that would take them past the Ninth Gate and to their final rest.

And who was this other man, this Ancelstierran? Whoever he was, he had an open, friendly face and warmth in his eyes as he'd looked at his companions. Kinga had no idea who he could be but she already liked him. He looked vaguely familiar but she couldn't pin down how precisely. Well, she'd have more of a chance to figure it out once she met him, which would be shortly, apparently.

Kinga swung by her quarters to change again, not back into the same furs but a cleaner set, over clothes fit for traveling, after washing up very hastily in her tiny closet of a bathroom. She tucked a pair of Charter-spelled pins into her braids and slid on two rings, hoping that she wouldn't need the Charter-sendings that would be summoned with one spoken mark but preferring to have them and not need them rather than need them and not have them. She packed a couple more things into a small bag, and then she was ready to go, to slip away without hardly anyone knowing where or why she went. As promised, her pack was in the Paperwing hangar, already loaded into the back of the cockpit of a fresh Paperwing, bow on one side of the pilot's seat and Charter-spelled sword holstered on the other side, and she was whistling the marks to summon a northerly wind before she was even properly seated. She pulled the green glass goggles down over her eyes and the furred cap over her hair as the Paperwing glided out of the hangar and toward the edge of the platform hanging over the bulk of the glacier, and then the wind caught the hawk wings and she was aloft.

Kinga loved flying. She might be a defective Clayr, but she was a fearsomely competent pilot, and not a bad sniper from the air, although she'd only honed her skills on animals and one very weakened Dead Hand. Paperwings wouldn't fly at night, and the Dead wouldn't usually walk during the day. Not that the Dead were her concern. They were the concern of the Abhorsen. The more Kinga thought about finding him, the more short of breath she felt, still not sure what the danger was to him or how she was necessary to stop it, not sure what to say to him when she did find him.

She followed the Ratterlin south, turning southwest when she caught sight of the mist of the waterfall cloaking Abhorsen's House. She couldn't get too close to the Wall in a Paperwing, the Charter magic that kept it soaring liable to fail if the wind blew from the south, but she controlled the winds with whistled Marks and followed parallel to the Wall until she saw something very unusual: a brand-new Charter Stone in the Borderlands, a plinth twice the height of a man covered in tiny, moving Charter marks flaring silver and gold as they streamed across the face of the stone. Kinga swallowed as she flew over it. While an unbroken Charter Stone was an ultimately good thing, its unknown provenance was worrisome, as was its proximity to the Wall, as were the number of new stones she passed before she spied a blue and silver Paperwing parked not too far from one of them, just in time as the sun was kissing the horizon already.

The echo of her whistled marks to bring her Paperwing down also brought the Abhorsen from around the stone, head craned back to watch her flawless landing mere paces from his Paperwing. If she hadn't known his face, she would have known him for the bandolier of bells he wore, the tools of a necromancer tempered with Charter Magic to impose control over the Free Magic that could dominate any undead thing. She couldn't make out the silver key insignia on his deep blue surcoat until she'd debarked from her Paperwing and pushed the goggles up her forehead, and he approached her with a smile at the corners of his mouth.

"Hello, cousin," he said, and she blinked. She'd been watching him for years but somehow didn't expect him to be shorter than her. He never seemed small in her visions, but standing before her they looked each other in the eye, and she'd always been considered tiny for a Clayr. "A bit late in the day for a pleasure flight," he continued, two fingers lifting in unspoken question before she pulled off her hat and goggles to bare the Charter mark on her forehead, and he paused. "Oh! Are you a Clayr? I've only met blonde ones before."

"I am a Clayr," she confirmed, not offended by the question. It was exceedingly rare for a Clayr to be anything but blonde; the last non-blonde Clayr had actually been half Abhorsen-- actually, was the mother of this Abhorsen. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Abhorsen."

"I'm sure the pleasure's mine," he said, and touched his fingers to her Charter mark to test its purity. It was not merely a common but a necessary greeting; a corrupted Charter mark was only borne by a person of truly ill intent. His eyes went wide for a moment and then he smiled as he let his hand fall. "Whatever brings a Clayr messenger this far from the Glacier must be dire," he said, only half a question, and he closed his eyes as she reached to touch his Charter mark in return.

She fell into the endless Charter, surrounded and buoyed by millions of golden marks, more than she could ever learn in a dozen lifetimes, the complete and accurate description of everything that is or was or will be lifting her back into herself. He opened his eyes again and smiled at her with the other half of that question in his gaze, and Kinga shook her head.

"I'm not a messenger," she said, and the question he didn't ask was erased by surprise. "I've been Seen in your company. So I'm here to be however useful I may be."

"Strange," he said softly. "Well. Who are you, fiery daughter of the glacier?"

"I'm-- my name is Kinga," she said, and he studied her for a moment before the smile returned.

"Hello, Kinga. I'm Maxiel."

"You're the Abhorsen," she said, and he sighed.

"That's a title," he said. "It's not my name. And there are few enough people who will dare to call me anything but my title. So, please, as someone who can formally get away with it... please call me Max."

"All right, Max," she said, and he nodded happily. "What are you doing out here?"

"Don't you know already?"

"Clayr Sight is fragmented," she said evasively. "I'd rather hear it from you, anyways."

"Come look at this Charter Stone," he said, and they stood side by side in front of the huge stone obelisk, easily two times again as tall as either of them. "How old does it look?"

"Old," she said, studying the stone underneath the fluid motion of Charter marks streaming down its surface. "The corners are rounded as if weathered. The grass grows right up to its sides, so it hasn't been moved into place recently."

"This stone was not here two days ago," he said, and she arched a brow at him. "It looks like it's been here for ages, right? But a week ago there were no Charter Stones nearer the Wall than Barhedrin."

"I counted eight since Barhedrin," Kinga said, and Max nodded. “Where are they coming from?”

“That’s the question,” Max said. “I found out they were being raised yesterday from a hawk from the Crossing Point Scouts. This was the furthest I got checking each stone out today.”

“Did you scout ahead?”

“I couldn’t see anyone or anything from the sky with a telescope,” he said. “And the Paperwing wanted to go down. I only got here a few minutes before you did.”

“I guess this is where we’re staying, then,” she said. “You want to build the fire? I don’t mind setting up camp.”

“Sure,” he said, and they both pulled their gear out of their Paperwings before Max headed for the tree line for firewood. Kinga shed her flying furs before she pulled the small bag out of her pack and removed a wooden carving of a pavilion that she held between both hands, pulling out a chain of Charter marks and running the marks through her fingers searching for where she needed to insert a couple more. She didn’t get many chances to show off and she kind of hated how badly she wanted to impress him but she was still going to do it. Anyways, he was a strong Charter mage too. He’d probably think it was interesting.

He came back half an hour later, just as twilight was slipping into dark, but had the fire going in a couple of minutes. When she came into the circle of light he gave her a questioning look that she answered with a smirk before speaking the master Charter mark to release the spell stored in the carving. In an instant a swarm of Charter marks flooded out of the wood and into the shape of a tall pavilion with banners hanging from the sides. When the golden lights settled down into the form Kinga had conjured, the banners were the silver key on blue and the golden star on green. She didn’t even look at it taking shape, too focused on his reaction and anyway she’d seen it before. 

“ _Wow_ ,” he said, the golden light of the spell taking shape reflecting in his dark eyes, and she wondered if she really saw marks in the shine or simply fancied that she did. He looked at her with a wide smile. “Please tell me you didn’t put that together in thirty minutes.”

“I wish,” she said with a laugh. “No. It took months to spell it the first time and now it takes a couple hours to reset it after using it.”

“But the banners--”

“I tweaked it in thirty minutes,” she said, and he nodded, taking a couple steps forward to touch one of the hanging banners. It felt like any Charter-sending, a tingle of unknown marks against skin. “There’s also a guard sending built into it. Someone still has to keep watch, but that’ll help if something goes wrong.”

“This is really neat work,” he said, and pulled his pack into the pavilion to rummage through it. “Do you make many things?”

“A few,” she said, not sure why she was being modest. “This is the one I use the most.”

“Well, it does seem very useful.” He came back to the fireside with a wedge of cheese, a sausage, and two very fat peaches. “I just left the House, these were picked this morning,” he said, handing her one. “I can’t remember ever having peaches at the Glacier.”

“We don’t have peaches in the orchard under Sunfall,” Kinga said, holding it up to her nose and breathing it in, letting it out on a sigh. “Oh, I have something too--” She pulled a wrapped bundle from her small bag and handed it to him. He sat down next to her before he accepted it, and gave her a suspicious look when the unmistakable scent hit his nose.

“Are my preferences a matter of Clayr record?” he asked, but couldn’t resist breaking off a piece of the cinnamon cake. 

“It’s my favorite too,” she said, leaving out the part where she’d only liked it after she found out that it was his favorite. “And that’s not important enough to have to go in the record.” She bit into the peach and made an embarrassingly loud sound of pleasure. “It tastes like sunshine,” she said in her own defense, but he wasn’t mocking her, just laughing in agreement.

“It does, doesn’t it? I wish I could take a taste of sunshine into Death sometimes. But I haven’t felt anything dead the whole time I’ve been following the stones, and I doubt that whoever’s raising Charter Stones has anything to do with Free Magic, so hopefully this will be an inquiry that doesn’t require leaving Life.” 

Their shared dinner didn’t take long, and Kinga stood up to inspect the Charter Stone, lit as if from within by the flow of Charter marks across its surface. Touching it gave her the same sensation as touching someone’s baptismal mark, falling into an endless wellspring of the Charter, and she pulled her hand back and looked back at Max sitting by the fire.

“It’s uncorrupted,” she said, and he nodded.

“They all are. I checked each of them and they’re all real and true.”

“Could it be someone of royal blood? Where’s the Prince?”

“He’s been in Belisaere since Midwinter. I was hoping the Clayr had seen something to do with this.”

“That’s why I’m here. We Saw you and me and one other person together, so I think we’ll find the person who’s doing it.” She sat next to him again, tilting her head back to look at the sky. “It’s warmer than I expected it to be.”

“Spring came early this far south. What were we Seen doing?”

“Excuse me?” Kinga flushed immediately, but kept her gaze firmly on the crescent moon.

“Whenever the Clayr send me a warning, they say what the vision was. What was this one?” For a second she considered lying, wondering if he even needed to know at all, but that wasn’t fair to him. She ran her hands over her braids and tried not to sigh audibly before she turned to him.

“Three of us in the master bedchamber of Abhorsen’s House,” she said, and confusion clouded his gaze before she added, “and none of us were clothed,” and confusion turned into shock.

“That’s… unorthodox,” he said awkwardly, and she snorted.

“That’s what I said.”

“Who was the third person?”

“A man. Maybe Ancelstierran, from the look of him. We’ve never Seen him before.”

“Ancelstierran? How’d he cross the Wall?” 

“I can honestly say I know no more than you do about him now.” 

“I suppose we’ll get our answers when we actually find him,” Max said. “I think we can be more aggressive about the search tomorrow. If all the Stones to this point have been real, it’d make more sense to assume the ones after it will be equally real, and once we fly to the end of the line we’ll find who’s responsible for this.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” Kinga said. “We’re grounded until the morning, at any rate. I can take first watch, I know you’ve been busy lately.”

“You do, do you?” His tone of voice was weird. She flushed slightly, barely noticeable in the orange glow of the fire.

“I mean, the Abhorsen is always busy,” she said.

“I always wonder how much I’m being watched,” he said. “Clayr Sight is so mysterious.”

“It’s mysterious even to those of us who have it,” Kinga said. “It’s uncontrolled and unbidden, most of the time. Outside of the Nine Day Watch, most of it is simple fragments or glimpses too brief to make sense of.”

“You make sense of enough of it to save my skin on a pretty regular basis. I’m grateful for it.”

“You’re welcome.” Shouldn’t she just tell him that he was all she ever Saw? Wouldn’t it be proper for him to know that she helped every time his skin was saved by a Clayr missive? She felt like he should know and equally felt like there was no way she could tell him. And then it felt like it was too late to say anything. “Good night,” she said awkwardly after a too-long silence. He blinked and his face fell slightly.

“Good night, then.” He went into the pavilion, and she turned her head to watch him slip between the banners. It looked like a flimsy construct, but under attack the walls would harden like steel and a Charter-sending of a guard with a sword would emerge. Soon the sound of snoring began to emanate from the pavilion, and she ran over the Charter-spell in her mind to figure out where to insert marks for soundlessness from inside out that wouldn’t impact sound coming from outside in. That kept her occupied for a couple of hours, but it wasn’t even midnight by the time she could no longer resist the urge to peek in on him. 

_Just a glimpse_ , she told herself, a Charter mark for light held in one cupped hand as she slipped into the pavilion silently. He was flat on his back on his bedroll, snoring away, and barely twitched when the gentle golden glow fell on him. Kinga leaned back against one of the corner supports of the pavilion and studied him for the first time unbound by duration of Sight or by propriety. 

He didn’t look like much of an Abhorsen, honestly. His mother, the previous Abhorsen, she’d looked the part, with her raven-black hair and tall, thin stature, same as his aunt, the Abhorsen before that and also Queen of the realm. Max was an anomaly, short and solidly built, his hair already slate grey and shading toward silver. Despite having the bone-white skin of one who had walked in Death, he didn’t look anywhere near as dangerous as he really was. He was also abnormally cheerful for a man who walked in Death and fought the most dire threats to the Kingdom. How he could still laugh after the things he’d seen, Kinga wasn’t sure. It was… endearing, though. It had always been endearing. She didn’t know how many brief glimpses of Sight had just been him laughing, but it had been one of the first things she’d Seen about him, years before, when his hair was still dark and his eyes unlined.

“What am I getting into?” she whispered, coming closer slowly. This was stupid, probably. She was being stupid. But she was also twenty years old and had never invited a visitor to the Glacier up to the Perfumed Gardens or even so much as kissed one, and the knowledge that she’d find herself in bed with two men was making her incredibly nervous and excited at the same time. At the very least, she thought that one kiss wasn’t too much to ask before things got entirely out of her control. Not that she was asking. She was standing over him like a voyeuristic creep, watching him sleep, staring at his slack mouth and wondering if he would kiss her if she asked or if she should just steal a kiss while he slept.

She’d been sitting next to him for a while, caught in indecision, before the snoring stalled out and she focused on him more sharply. Was he breathing? It didn’t look like he was breathing. Her fingers flew to his throat and at her touch he jerked and sucked in a breath, sitting up slightly.

“Who--” He had a Charter mark for light in his hand before he was awake enough to realize that she had one too, and he let his head fall back against his rolled-up surcoat. “Oh. Is it--” He paused to yawn. “Is it my turn to watch?”

“Yes,” she said. “If you’re rested.”

“I’m fine,” he said, and propped himself up on his elbows with a sigh. “One night. I got one night at home in my own bed in eleven days. What I’d give for a break.”

“Well, you’ll be back home soon. With company.” She wanted to ask him but the question stuck in her mouth like a Charter mark that would burn her to speak it. 

“As you say.” He seemed as shy about looking at her after the reminder as she felt this whole time. “Has the night been quiet?”

“Nothing’s stirred,” she said, hoping it was true for the two hours she’d spent in here watching him sleep. He nodded and got up to stretch and pull his bedroll back together as she unrolled hers, both of them casting sideways glances at each other until she finished and straightened up. “Max?”

“Yes?” He finished repacking his pack and stood next to her, looking not entirely alert yet but very curious. She bit her lip and then reminded herself that fear was stupid when she knew where they’d end up eventually.

“Could you kiss me?” 

“If you like,” he said, faint color rising in his pale cheeks. “I think I may have dreamed about doing it already.” That was interesting. Clayr blood ran through his veins; she wondered if he was more likely to dream true because of it. “Right now?”

“Please.” He studied her face for a long moment before his lips curved into a smile and he leaned forward, giving her a sweet, lingering kiss that made her sigh. “Oh,” she said when he pulled away. “All right. Thank you.”

“That’s a disturbingly noncommittal response,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.

“Your lips are cold.”

“Yes. That’s a hazard of walking in Death too often. I’m a little bit cold all the time. You’re surprisingly warm for someone who lives in a glacier.”

“The Clayr’s Glacier is heated from the hot springs below the mountains,” she said, and caught his lips twitching upward. “As you well know from your visits there.”

“How is it that our paths never crossed? I’ve been there a dozen times in the past few years--”

“Seventeen times in seven years, since you were still Abhorsen-in-Waiting,” she said. “Six of those you never came in further than the Paperwing hangar.” He blinked. “I’d watch from the back of the hangar,” she confessed. “I’m not important enough to meet with the Abhorsen normally. But I always knew when you were coming.”

“Don’t tell me they announce it.”

“No. I always Saw you coming. You know that you’re always Seen before you arrive. I’m nearly always on the Nine Day Watch when we See you arriving.”

“So you avoided me,” he said, half a question, and she shrugged.

“I never Saw us together. I had no reason to bother you. Until now.”

“Bother is not the word.” He cupped her face between his square, strong hands and smiled at her. “Whatever we’re going into tomorrow, I’m glad to not be going alone. Your presence is very welcome.” Then he let go of her and turned to exit the pavilion. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you at dawn.” She didn’t move for a moment, and then only to touch her fingers to her own cheek, chasing the chill that his cool hands had pressed to her skin so briefly. 

For a long while she couldn’t sleep. As a Paperwing pilot, she was used to flying out of range of the Glacier and sleeping rough, but this was barely rough at all-- a mild late spring night with no known threats and someone to keep watch while she slept, that was luxury, honestly. It wasn’t her boots and hauberk keeping her awake, though, but the memory of Max’s cool skin brushing against hers. She wondered if he was cool all over and then wondered how shortly she’d be able to discover the truth. Somewhere in the midst of her wondering, she fell asleep.


	2. New and Unusual Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kinga Sees a little of what's going to happen, but it doesn't prepare her for Jonah. Who is this wide-eyed kid who knows way more than he should?

_“There’s a blood price,” the man said, spreading his big hands to show where he’d slashed his palms-- at least ten times for the ten Stones he’d raised already. “I’ve been paying it myself, but--”_

_“How?” Kinga asked. “Only royal blood can raise a Charter Stone, and you--”_

_“You’re not royal,” Max said. “I know the whole royal family. You’re not one of them.”_

_“I’m not royal anything,” the man said, folding his hands together to hide his wounded palms. “I’m just doing what I feel called to be doing. There’s a reason for me to be doing this. I just don’t know what the reason is yet.”_

_“But who_ are _you?” Kinga asked, and the man pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled at her._

_“I told you, I’m--”_

“Kinga.” The sound of her name shook her out of the vision-dream and she dragged her eyes open with a groan. Max stood over her, looking annoyingly cheerful for the crack of dawn. “There’s breakfast when you’re ready for it.” He left her alone in the pavilion to wake up, and she sighed and ground the heels of her palms against her eyes until she felt ready to get up. She repacked her pack, left the pavilion, and spoke the Charter mark that would reduce it to a carved figurine once more. “Can I look at that?” he asked. She tossed it to him.

“The spell’s dormant, but you can look at it all you want.” Breakfast was porridge with sliced peaches, savored though she ate it quickly, and he handed her the pavilion carving in exchange for his sand-scoured pot, both of them packing away these last items and stowing their packs securely in their Paperwings. 

“Due west,” he said, and she nodded. Once they whistled the marks to take them airborne, only one of them needed to maintain the winds, and Kinga was determined to make herself useful. That she was showing off was incidental. They crossed two more Charter Stones, as evenly spaced as the ones that came before, and then where they might have crossed another Stone they passed over a person in the leathers and khaki of a Crossing Point Scout. Paperwings flew silently, but when Kinga whistled the marks to begin their descent the person looked up to find the source of the sound and kept his face turned up to watch the two aircraft spiral down to land on either side of him a few yards out.

“Hello,” he said, and Kinga studied him as she hopped out of her Paperwing and pushed her goggles up onto her hair. He looked young, certainly no older than she was, and he was taller than anyone she’d ever met except maybe the barbarian Northern trader who came from the edge of the Great Rift when she was sixteen. He was wearing the uniform of a Scout, but appeared unarmed except for a small dagger holstered at his belt. And he was wearing those peculiar lenses in front of his eyes. Most things made in Ancelstierre fell apart in the magic of the Old Kingdom, but these had to have been made in the Old Kingdom after all, for there was nothing wrong with them here. “You’re the first people I’ve seen in days.”

“Who are you?” she asked. Max was still getting out of his Paperwing, not quite as easy on the dismount as she was when she’d been flying so often, but when he finally found his feet the man looked from her to Max and back again.

“I’m Jonah,” he said, standing still as she approached him. 

“What are you doing on this side of the Wall?” They were still in eyeshot of the Wall, as all the Charter Stones that had been raised were, and Jonah glanced over his shoulder at it before turning back to her. 

“I’m on a mission.”

“A mission for the Crossing Point Scouts?” The hawk they’d sent Max hadn’t mentioned a deserter. Jonah shook his head.

“I’m not one of them. I just had to look like one to get across.” Kinga and Max shared an uncomfortable look, and Max came closer, reaching up and falling far short of Jonah’s forehead. 

“Lean down so I can test your Charter mark,” he said, and Jonah obediently lowered his head so Max could touch two fingers to it. Kinga’s brow furrowed an instant before Max made contact, but she was too late to shout a warning.

The baptismal Charter mark was the same for everyone, regardless of whether it was received as a baby or as an adult. The mark that flared golden under Max’s fingertips was something different altogether. Kinga’s eyes watered at the radiance as she fought to catalog the mark in the hundreds of Charter marks she knew, falling far short. It was a master mark, she could tell that much, something to bind together a complex working, but what kind of working she had no idea. Max froze for much longer than testing a Charter mark should take, and then he staggered, caught immediately by Jonah and held until he was steady.

“Are you all right?” Jonah asked, one fingertip rubbing curiously against the dark leather of Max’s bell-bandolier where he held the shorter man by both shoulders, and Max nodded slowly.

“Test him,” Max said to Kinga, who gave him a puzzled look. “It’s a pure mark, that’s not the problem. But that’s never happened to me before. I can’t explain it.”

“If you don’t mind,” Kinga said, lifting a finger to meet Jonah’s bowed head. 

The usual experience of testing a Charter mark was a feeling of falling and being caught by the endless stream of marks that defined all of existence. This was almost like that, except the fall was much longer and the marks swarmed around her body like armor and shot her upward like a hunting hawk being loosed. She swayed when she came back to her senses and found Jonah’s arm bracing her upright.

“What is it?” Jonah asked anxiously. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“What are you?” Kinga asked back, stepping out of his reach with suspicion writ large on her face. “You’re not human, are you?”

“ _What_? What else would I be?”

“I think he is human,” Max said. “He’s not a Charter-sending, he’s definitely not Free Magic, he’s not tainted by Death--”

“I’m very confused,” Jonah said. “I’ve been very confused for a while now. I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing, you understand. I know I need to do it. But not why.”

“What do you think you’re doing, then?” Max asked gently.

“I’m-- I’m making stones,” Jonah said.

“How are you making them?” Kinga asked.

“There’s a blood price,” Jonah said, and she knew what she would see before he lifted his hands, palms up to show the slashes across his heartlines. “I’ve been paying it myself, but--”

“How?” Kinga asked. “Only royal blood can raise a Charter Stone, and you--”

“You’re not royal,” Max said. “I know the whole royal family. You’re not one of them.”

“I’m not royal anything,” Jonah said, folding his hands together to hide his wounded palms. “I’m just doing what I feel called to be doing. There is a reason for me to be doing this. I just don’t know what the reason is yet.”

“But who _are_ you?” Kinga asked, and the man pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled at her.

“I told you, I’m Jonah. Jonah Heston.”

“Are you Ancelstierran?” Max asked, and Jonah shrugged again.

“I was born south of the Wall,” he said. “In Bain. Not far.”

“How’d you learn Charter magic?” Kinga asked.

“I was taught a bit in school,” Jonah said. “But I sort of... know more of it than I ever was taught. And I just sort of know what I need to do with it. I don’t question it. I just do what I need to do.”

“You do realize how peculiar you are?” Max asked, and Jonah bit his lip and looked down. “Not in a bad way. Just a very curious one. Would you mind coming with us?”

“Can I finish this first?” Jonah asked. “It won’t take long. I’ve gotten more efficient at it.” Kinga and Max shared a glance, and then she shrugged and made an expansive gesture.

“Go for it. Mind if we watch?”

“I’d be a little sad if you didn’t,” Jonah said. “Please don’t speak for a few minutes.” He turned his back on the Abhorsen and the Clayr, pulling the dagger from his belt and reopening the gashes across his palms so his blood fell freely on the grass. He paced around, murmuring marks under his breath as his blood described a four-sided figure a bit too irregular to be a square, and then he began to whistle, drawing marks into his working at a faster pace. Kinga bit down on the side of her fist to keep herself silent as marks began to rise from the ground in the shape that Jonah’s blood had laid down, slowly ascending as he circled the shape, until the whistle died down and Jonah spoke four master marks that would have burned Kinga’s tongue out of her mouth had she tried to use any one of them. Suddenly, the shimmering column of marks was wrapped around an obelisk of red stone, and Jonah took a step back and looked up at it as he paced around it slowly. “Okay,” he said. He’d been right: it hadn’t taken long at all, maybe a quarter of an hour at most. 

Max walked around the new Charter Stone, eyes wide as he investigated it. Kinga came up beside Jonah and took one of his huge hands between both of hers. “Would you like me to heal you?”

“Oh, that’d be nice, thank you.” She poured water over his palm to wash away the blood, then drew a mark in the air above his wound. They both watched the mark sink into his skin and dissolve into golden light that ran the length of the cut, and when the light faded the wound looked a week old instead of ten minutes old. He made an interested sound and offered her his other hand to repeat the process, by which time Max had rejoined them. 

“So you’re raising Charter Stones on blood magic and instinct,” Max said. “But you’re not royalty. You seem human… you have to be carrying one of the Great Charters somehow or this wouldn’t be possible.”

“Who are you? Both of you? I’m sorry, I was very preoccupied with holding what I was about to do in my mind just then, but I have questions now.”

“That’s totally fair,” Max said. “I’m the Abhorsen, and this is Kinga of the Clayr.”

“Oh! _You’re_ the Abhorsen? I remember when you had to replace the wind flutes and--” Jonah cut himself off abruptly when he realized that they’d needed to be replaced because of the death of the previous Abhorsen. Max winced slightly. “Um. That was the first time I came to the Wall. To study the old ones. It was a class trip. And once I came to the Wall I began to realize what I had to do.” That was a fairly ominous turn of phrase, but Jonah’s mission was benign so far as they could tell. “So where do you want to take me?”

“Abhorsen’s House,” Kinga said. “Probably the safest place in the Old Kingdom.” She was thinking ahead, that he would almost certainly need to come to the Great Library of the Clayr at some point, but Abhorsen’s House had to be their first destination. Jonah looked west along the Wall, fixing his glasses higher up his nose.

“I’m not finished,” he said. “I have a lot left to do. But I’ll come with you if you’ll answer my questions while you’re asking me yours.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Max, do you want to take our packs? I’m pretty sure I have more experience flying with a passenger than you do.”

“Sure thing.” It took a few minutes to get things moved around, but sooner than later they were aloft. Kinga kept her goggles but wrapped Jonah in her flight furs and hat, knowing he’d freeze in his stolen uniform. She rather enjoyed the bite of the thin atmosphere through her clothes. They were flying practically into the sun, but the Paperwing knew where they were going, the Abhorsen’s House being a regular stop for many of the patrol to deliver messages. Jonah was quiet for most of the trip, and she turned to find him craning his head to look down on what they passed. The Borderlands had been settled by royal decree, land given to the Southerling refugees caught up in the machinations of evil that had spanned the Wall, and they soared over a patchwork of fields and homes and streams, the people working the fields nearly all wearing blue scarves or hats. They passed Barhedrin and Jonah caught sight of the Charter Stone at the crest of the hill.

“What’s wrong with that one?” he asked, and Kinga turned to arch a brow at him. “That Charter Stone. It’s not the same.”

“It was broken,” Kinga said. “King Touchstone repaired it fifty years ago. You can tell that it was broken?”

“Yeah. How many broken stones were there?”

“Hundreds,” Kinga said. “Broken with the blood of Charter mages during the Interregnum. The King repaired many but not all. His son repaired more and raised some.”

“So what I’m doing _is_ necessary,” Jonah said, and he went quiet again until they approached the waterfall, at which point he let out a deep, happy sigh. “Good, I have something to do here too.”

“More or less important than raising Charter Stones?”

“Exactly that important.” Kinga couldn’t make a reply as she was whistling down the wind to land them on the Paperwing platform on the east side of the island, but she had to wonder: _aren’t there already Charter Stones here?_

Max had beat them there, already out of his bell-bandolier and gethre hauberk, and there were Charter-sendings taking those and the packs out of his Paperwing as he stood at the edge of the platform and watched the river take its plunge. Kinga came over, trying to be nonchalant about staring around at a place she’d only seen in visions, and Jonah abandoned the flight furs in her Paperwing and followed her, craning his neck to get a better view of the edge of the falls. “Welcome to Abhorsen’s House,” Max said, smiling at them. “Would you like the tour?”

“Yes please,” Jonah said eagerly, turning his attention toward the house and its clear-topped tower. “I love good architecture and this is a style I feel like I know but can’t put a name to.”

“I think ‘ancient’ is the word you’re looking for,” Kinga said. “Abhorsen’s House has existed for centuries. Almost as long as there’s been an Abhorsen.”

“I’m the fifty-fifth,” Max said, and started to lead them through the gardens on a roundabout way to the house. “Although some were short-lived. Many. Many were short-lived.”

“Not your mother and not the Queen,” Kinga said, and he nodded.

“I’m hoping to follow their example by leading an interesting but not quickly fatal lifestyle.”

“You don’t look very old,” Jonah said, and Max ran a hand over his greying hair and gave him a skeptical look. 

“I’m not,” he said. “Usually people tell me I look a lot older than I am. Now you, _you_ don’t look very old. Definitely not old enough to wander the Borderlands by yourself in disguise doing the sort of magic you have no reason to be able to do.”

“I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“You probably should have asked that question before you flew off with us,” Kinga said, and he looked at her wide-eyed. “Don’t worry. You most likely won’t come to any harm here.”

“Not at our hands, anyways,” Max added. “There’s some places on the island you probably shouldn’t go, but…”

“You should tell me where they are so I can avoid them, because I’d _really_ like to look around here a bit. This place is crawling with Charter magic, isn’t it?”

“Practically everywhere,” Max agreed. “I don’t think you should wander around without me. The sendings will recognize Kinga as one of the blood, but they wouldn’t be as friendly to you.”

“I won’t wander off,” Jonah said, and immediately wandered off to examine the stone border of a rosebed, stooping to trace the Charter marks carved into it with one fingertip. “Who put these here?”

“The roses? I think that was the sixth Abhorsen,” Max said. “I know the orchard was there from very early on, but I think the roses came later, and the well after that. I think you’ll like the orchard a little better, if you’re interested in really old magic.”

“I think I’ll like the orchard better too,” Kinga said. Roses weren’t rare in the Glacier-- the Perfumed Gardens were full of them. But peaches, those were interesting. The first tree they passed, set alone on the north lawn, was a huge old fig tree, full of fruit despite the season, and Jonah paused with his head tilted all the way back to look up through the leaves, then bent to inspect a carved stone which had been overgrown by a root.

“Are the trees always in fruit?” 

“Part of the magic of this place,” Max said with a nod. “This tree was the first one planted on this island. It’s the very spot the first Abhorsen pitched their tent.”

“Neat,” Jonah said, sounding slightly distracted. Bending over was a pain, so he dropped to one knee to examine the stone more easily. “Why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?”

“You can’t possibly have,” Max said. “Not if you’re really Ancelstierran. This is very advanced Charter magic, there’s nothing like this near the Wall.”

“Maybe he’s got the Sight,” Kinga said dryly. Jonah turned to look at her and she waved a hand dismissively. “It’s a joke. Only Clayr have the Sight. And you’re definitely not a Clayr. But what _are_ you?”

“Just a person,” Jonah said as he got back to his feet and dusted his trousers off. “A person with a mission.”

“So’s he,” Kinga said, pointing at Max. “You’ve got to be more specific than that.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. Until a couple years ago I was just a normal kid. I took the Charter magic lessons that were offered in school, but that’s not much. When I was fifteen we took a trip to the Perimeter to examine the shards of the wind flutes after they’d been replaced, and… when I touched them something happened.”

“Again, you’ve got to be more specific than that,” Kinga said, and Jonah sighed.

“You ever get an idea and you don’t know where it came from?”

“Uh… remember that thing about Clayr having the Sight? Yes. But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about.” Jonah turned a beseeching look on Max, who was studying him with a furrow in his brow.

“Not really. Sorry.” Jonah sighed and fixed his glasses up his nose.

“Well, I don’t know how else to describe it. When I picked up the piece of wind flute, I could understand all the marks on it. And all the marks on the other pieces. And I could see how they fit together. I couldn’t make one, but I know why it works.”

“Did you try to make one?” Max asked, suddenly intense, and Jonah shook his head quickly.

“No. Only the Abhorsen can make them, that was pretty clear. I might not know why I’m doing what I’m doing but I know better than to try going into Death for kicks. That’s too mixed up with Free Magic. You handle it as a job, that’s one thing. But all I know is Charter magic, and I’m happy with that.”

“But you know a lot of Charter magic,” Kinga pointed out, and Jonah smiled slightly.

“I know… maybe not all of it, but way more of it than I should know given my schooling and age. I haven’t come across a mark I couldn’t identify since then.”

“How old are you, anyways?” Max asked. Jonah looked down and mumbled something. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I’m seventeen,” Jonah said more clearly. “Almost eighteen. Very close to eighteen.”

“You mean you might not be full grown yet?” Kinga tipped her head back to look up at him, then shook it slightly. “You’re already too tall.”

“Too tall for what?” _To kiss_ , she thought, and flushed pink and kept her mouth shut.

“Too tall for either of us to keep up with on foot, if you knew where you were going,” Max said. “But the perfect height to take advantage of the rest of the orchard. Are you done looking at this tree?”

“Yes. Is every tree Charter-spelled?”

“I wonder if you’d be able to tell if I didn’t tell you. Come on, let’s see what happens.” Jonah kept looking around as Max lead them past the lawn and to the path leading to the orchard, and he wandered off in the wrong direction almost immediately.

“What’s this fountain?” he asked, and Max turned and sighed before following Jonah’s path away from where he was trying to lead.

“Alliel’s fountain. The forty-ninth Abhorsen. He spent a lot of time with the Clayr in their Library,” Max said, and sat on the edge of the fountain when he reached it, fingertips dipping into the water. “This is the most recent permanent addition to the island.” Jonah didn’t sit, choosing instead to stalk around the fountain with his head cocked, finding the marks carved into the stone as he made his slow way around. Kinga shrugged and sat next to Max.

“He’s going to look at everything we pass,” she murmured.

“Did you See that?”

“I don’t need the Sight when I have perfectly functional eyes. Look at him, he’s practically giddy with discovery.”

“Uh-- Abhorsen?” Jonah called from the other side of the fountain. 

“That’s a title,” Max said. “My name is Maxiel. You can call me Max.”

“Oh. Okay, sure. Max, then. What’s this inscription mean?”

“It’s a dedication,” Max said, not needing to get up to know what Jonah was asking about. “And an example of bad poetry. It’s not magical. It’s just overblown and sappy.”

“It’s not a riddle or something?”

“Why, do you have an answer for it?”

“It just seems like it should have an answer.”

“Not as far as I know.” Kinga got up to go look, and pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back laughter when she read it.

“This was a very popular verse form in the Glacier about a century ago. He’s right, it should have an answer.”

“I thought it was a rhetorical question,” Max said, coming around the fountain to frown at the familiar carving. “So what’s the answer?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m terrible at figuring these out,” Kinga said. “I can’t stand this kind of poem. Romantic drivel.”

“Not a romantic, hm?” Max’s frown deepened slightly. “I don’t mind it as long as it’s not so ham-handed. But this is too much.” Jonah hadn’t stopped looking around, and after a moment he walked away from the fountain slantwise from the path, walking a straight line toward a tree at the edge of the orchard which had many plump red apples hanging from its branches. He walked around the tree with the same slow deliberation he’d circled the fountain-- and the Charter Stone he raised-- and then he put his hand on the tree at his shoulder height.

“Come look at this,” he called, and both Max and Kinga came over to see what he’d found. When he moved his hand, it had been covering two names carved into the bark of the tree: _Alliel + Jalerel_

“He spent a lot of time in the Great Library,” Kinga said dryly. “With a librarian. I bet she’s the one who wrote the poem.”

“Well, putting up a fountain for love of a Clayr is not a half bad display of it,” Max said thoughtfully. “Would it work on you?”

“Are you planning on courting me?” 

“You’re the one who Saw it, not me.”

“That’s not what I Saw.”

“What did you See, then?” Jonah’s brows climbed as he looked from one to the other.

“What are you talking about? I know you said the Clayr have the Sight but I don’t really know what that means…”

“Oh! Do you not know about the Great Charters?” Kinga didn’t know why she was surprised when Jonah shook his head. It wasn’t like schoolchildren in Bain were taught the history of the Old Kingdom. But it was strange that Jonah was so familiar with Charter magic and so ignorant of what it entailed. “Pick me an apple and I’ll tell you about them,” she said with a smile, and he looked up into the branches to find a good one, presenting it to her with a returned smile.

“A bit mercenary,” Max said, but he was laughing under his breath. “I’ll tell you for free, you know.”

“Too late, he already did it.” Kinga rolled the apple between her palms and looked up at Jonah. “Do you want the schoolchildren’s rhyme or the adults’ explanation?”

“Both in that order, please.” 

“Give him the rhyme and then eat your fruit, I think talking this through with him will help me figure it out,” Max said. She leaned against the tree’s trunk and adopted a sing-song tone.

“ _Five Great Charters knit the land_

_together linked, hand in hand_

_One in the people who wear the crown_

_Two in the folk who keep the Dead down_

_Three and Five became stone and mortar_

_Four sees all in frozen water._ ” Jonah didn’t look any less confused when she bit into the apple with a loud crunch.

“That explained nothing,” he said, and Max held up a finger.

“Well, wait a minute, I told you I’d have the explanation. All she had was the mnemonic device. What do you know about the beginning of the world?”

“Uh…” Jonah blinked. “There was a Big Bang and then things started existing?”

“A Big Bang? Is that what they teach in Ancelstierre?”

“Well, what do you learn on this side of the Wall?”

“Before there was anything, there was Free Magic. And in the Free Magic were nine beings of great power, the Nine Bright Shiners. Seven of them joined together to create the Charter, to guide magic into a form that would support independent life. Two of them fought the creation of the Charter and were defeated. One was pressed into service, the other was buried deep beneath the earth under seven wards. The Charter describes everything that exists, except for the Free Magic creatures which escaped at the beginning. Of the Seven, five of them were completely given over to the creation of the Charter and survive in three bloodlines and two constructs: the Royal family, who wear the crown, the Abhorsen line, who return the Dead to Death, and the Clayr line, who are gifted with Sight from their stronghold in the Glacier at the source of the River Ratterlin, and in the Charter Stones and the Wall, which were created when the Wallmakers sacrificed their bloodline into the raising of them.” Jonah nodded slowly, not entirely sure he was following, and Max smiled. “You were asking about the Clayr. I think Kinga’s more equipped to answer those questions.” She’d made it most of the way through her apple while he talked, and looked irritated to have to stop before it was finished, but swallowed and took over the lesson.

“The Clayr are the most diffuse bloodline. There are thousands of us in the Glacier. When there were fewer of us, the Sight came more strongly to each, but now there are some with real strength of vision and some who can barely See.”

“Which are you?” Jonah asked, and she knew he didn’t know, but couldn’t stop herself from flushing anyways.

“My Sight is limited… there’s always one person in every vision I See.”

“Do you know who it is?” Silently, she pointed at Max, whose eyes widened.

“What? You See me? You _only_ See me?”

“Yes,” she said, cursing silently as she could feel her blush darken. “And whoever you’re with at the time, but-- always you. Yes.”

“So when you Saw us--”

“The three of us,” she said quickly, not that it helped anything. Now Max was blushing too and Jonah just looked utterly bemused.

“You saw me too? What were we doing?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and Jonah frowned.

“I’m not stupid,” he said. “And if you both know and I don’t that’s unfair. And considering you’re both as red as these apples, I think you both know. Is it embarrassing? Why won’t you tell me?”

“We’re going to end up in bed together,” she said in a rush, and the color flooded into Jonah’s face too.

“We-- are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Jonah looked at Kinga carefully, then turned his gaze on Max, and shrugged after a second, a smile lifting the corners of his lips.

“I guess that’s my sexuality crisis sorted, then. If it’s a matter of prophecy. I wasn’t really sure, but… is that sort of thing common up here?”

“No,” Max said. “It’s not. It’s not _bad_ , but it’s not common.”

“Well, none of us are common people,” Kinga said. “Although what you are is still a mystery.”

“I have a theory,” Max said. “A pretty solid theory, I think.”

“Don’t leave me in suspense,” Jonah said. “What am I?”

“You’re raising Charter Stones with your blood and you’re not royal… you must be a Wallmaker.”

“The Wallmakers have been gone for centuries,” Kinga said. “Why would one show up south of the Wall?”

“They’re not totally gone,” Max said. “Prince Sameth was revealed as a Wallmaker when he realized that he wasn’t actually Abhorsen-in-Waiting.”

“Out of nowhere,” Kinga said. “Somehow mixing Abhorsen blood and Royal blood produces a Wallmaker? That’s not how bloodlines work.”

“Well, mixing Abhorsen blood and Clayr blood produced a Remembrancer,” Max said. “I’d know. She was my mother.”

“Remembrancers aren’t a Great Charter,” Kinga shot back. “And she was Abhorsen over anything.”

“That’s true,” Max said. They both turned their attention back up at Jonah, who looked less puzzled than they thought he would.

“I never knew my father,” he said slowly. “But my mother said he was from across the Wall. Other people said that she was just making it up because she was embarrassed about whoever it was, and I sort of believed them until until this Charter magic stuff started happening.”

“Did she say anything else about him?” Kinga asked, and Jonah shook his head.

“Just that I have his coloring,” he said. “She had fair hair and blue eyes, and I’m dark of both.” Max and Kinga shared a glance and both studied Jonah a little more closely. Dark eyes and hair were an Abhorsen trait, one that Queen Sabriel had passed on to both her children. Max had inherited his from Lirael, and it was strange that his hair was losing its color so quickly when Abhorsens rarely went grey. Kinga made a note to herself to ask him about it later, wondering how much she could get out of him about his unusual parentage.

“Honestly,” Max said, a little hesitant, “except for how tall you are? You have the look. You could easily be a royal bastard.”

“Ouch,” Jonah said. “I know it’s a legitimate term but I’ve been called a bastard often enough that adding the word ‘royal’ doesn’t soften the blow much.”

“Sorry. And even if that makes sense of some things, it doesn’t explain your weird Charter mark, or how you know things without having learned them.”

“Natural aptitude?” Jonah said hopefully. “But… you’re not doubting that I’m human any more, at least?”

“Pretty sure you’re flesh and blood like the rest of us,” Kinga said. “Sorry for casting aspersions. So, wait…” She pointed at Jonah. “Royal and Wallmaker blood.” To Max. “Abhorsen and Clayr blood.” Then to herself. “Being full Clayr is a little boring next to that, but I think we have every Great Charter bloodline represented between the three of us.”

“I wonder how dear the blood price would be to make a Great Charter Stone,” Max said, and for a moment even the everpresent roar of the waterfall faded into silence as his words sank in, or maybe that was just Kinga losing touch with reality for a second when she realized why she was there at all.

What she did in bed didn’t matter. The vision merely spurred her to be there because this was going to happen. In all the Old Kingdom there were six Great Charter Stones, in the reservoir beneath the royal palace in Belisaere. If it were possible that another could be created, that was by far the most important thing she could do.

“Let’s do it,” she said, and Max’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Wait a second, I didn’t mean we should discover by doing it! We could get seriously hurt by using some of the marks he used at the Wall.”

“If the Charter wills it, we’ll be fine,” she said, sounding far more offhanded and upbeat than she felt. This had to be why she was here, right? So she should have a good attitude about it. 

“I don’t want either of you to get hurt,” Jonah said. “Aside from whatever’s required to raise it, which I don’t know. And I’ve never even thought about doing this with another person. But I’m here for a reason and so are both of you. And honestly, I think it’ll go okay. I feel like it’s the right thing to do, and so far my instincts have guided me pretty well.”

“This is crazy,” Max said, “I just want to register my opinion that this is crazy and I can’t afford to die with no one to follow me.”

“Then you won’t die,” Kinga said brightly. “That wouldn’t make sense anyways. Come on, Max, think about it. Why’s the Charter so weak around the Wall? Because there are no stones there and it’s clear across the kingdom to the Great Charter Stones. Jonah’s mission has been putting up stones practically up against the Wall. Why? What’s the good of it? He doesn’t know why he’s doing it, so what’s compelling him? It has to be the Charter. The Sight wouldn’t have sent me down for an assignation. It’s what we’re going to do before or after that that’s important.”

“The Charter…” Max folded his arms and stared up at Jonah, who blinked behind his glasses and stared back. It wasn’t Jonah’s eyes Max was looking at but the Charter mark on his forehead that he’d never seen before. “You’re honestly inexplicable except for being an instrument of the Charter.” 

“I know what my purpose is,” Jonah said. “If that’s because the Charter is willing it… I’m all right with that. At least I know I’m doing something purely good.”

“Would you like an additional purely good purpose? Pick me some cherries,” Kinga said, pointing deeper into the orchard, and Jonah tilted his head and gave her a look.

“Are all Clayr bossy or is that an individual thing?” he asked, and she smiled.

“Some are. I definitely am.”

“I knew that much already,” he said dryly, and went to do what he’d been told.

“You really are,” Max said, but he looked amused. “You shouldn’t take advantage of a sweet nature.”

“Are you worried about him or you?” 

“I’m worried about all of us,” he said. “But worrying about everything has kept me alive this long.”

“‘This long’,” she said. “You said you’re younger than you look.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” he said. “I’ve been the Abhorsen for three years. I’ve been greying since the second month. Which is weird, because the Abhorsens before me had black hair until their deaths, and because I’ve been walking in Death since I was twelve.”

“I know,” Kinga said. “But your bloodline’s a little more complicated than the Great Charters, isn’t it?”

“Charter Magic is all I use,” Max said firmly. “My affinity for Free Magic doesn’t matter because it’s abhorrent to use in anything but the constrained form of my bells.”

“I think it might matter in this,” Kinga said. “I think it might be necessary for this. You’re not standing for Abhorsen and Clayr. You’re standing for Abhorsen and for what the Charter fights to contain.”

“And you’re sure I’m not going to die,” he said, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

“Pretty sure. Mostly sure. As long as we make the Stone before we end up in your bedchamber we all have to survive.”

“I still feel like we shouldn’t rush into anything,” Max said, as Jonah came back with his hands full of cherries. 

“Are we going for a fruit salad or is this all you want?” He’d plucked far more than she could hold in her cupped hands, and he offered Max the other handful.

“It’s actually lunchtime, the sendings have already laid it out probably,” Max said, pointing at the sun directly overhead, then taking a couple cherries before leading the way to the house proper. “The hall is a good place to start showing you around the house, too. Since this tour didn’t get very far.”

“It was nice to talk under the trees though,” Kinga said. “It’s so beautiful here. I’ve Seen you all over this island and it’s nice to be here with you in truth.”

“It’s nice to not be here alone,” Max said, offering her and Jonah a smile.

“It’s nice to get some answers,” Jonah said. “But I still have questions.” 

“I think we all probably have questions,” Max said. “I know I have a lot of them.”

“No, I’m good,” Kinga said, and immediately ran into Max when he stopped walking. “Ow!”

“Seriously?” he asked, and she rolled her eyes.

“Not seriously! Obviously there are things I want to know before we do this.”

“Then let’s have a proper council in the study and see how many answers we can figure out between the three of us,” Max said.

They were all innocent of the dozens of Charter-sendings that would brook no argument in sweeping each of them off to a separate room upstairs to be forcibly scrubbed and presented with new clothes brought by the sendings, Max shouting an apology for the senile old things in the moment before he was swept further upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I never used to write slow burn until I started writing Kinga/Max. It's kinda nice though. 
> 
> Let me know if you like it, please! I know I get really into writing these and trying to strike a good balance between the AU and the essential characters.


	3. A Not-So-Proper Council

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What begins as a serious attempt to plan their undertaking becomes much less serious when they go up to the observatory. Which isn't to say that intimacy isn't a serious matter, but it can also be a fun one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come on, you all knew the rating was going to change. You don't need the Sight to see the smut coming in a speccygeekgrrl fic.

The vigorous washing by Charter-sendings that pinched her when she tried to slap them away was highly awkward, but at the end of being scrubbed to within an inch of her life she was presented with a warm, fluffy towel and a gown draped over the bed, so Kinga couldn’t complain too vigorously. The gown was nothing she’d brought with her and far nicer than anything she owned, green silk embroidered all over with golden stars that fit like a dream, cut low at the neck and lower at the back. There was a necklace of gold and emeralds beside it that she was hesitant to put on, fearing she’d be ridiculously adorned, but she couldn’t resist for long; the pendant gemstone nestled in her cleavage as if it had been made just to fit her. The sendings had pulled all the pins out of her hair both Charter-spelled and typical, and her freshly washed hair cascaded down her bared back in luscious copper waves. She used the Charter-spelled pins to keep it out of her face, knowing that she was likely to hide behind it if she didn’t. 

It wasn’t often she had a reason to dress up, and she’d never worn anything as fine as this before. She wondered how many Clayr had been here before her dressed in green and gold. Then she thought about the last time a Clayr and an Abhorsen were together in the master bedchamber. That had been Max’s grandparents, and she had been brought there by what she had Seen, like Kinga had. 

_...what if I’m wrong about why I’m here? What if I’m here for the same reason Arielle came?_ The thought struck her like a blow to the face, and she stumbled to sit on the edge of the bed, staring at her shaking hands. What if she _had_ seen the reason she needed to be here? What if it really was as simple as a dalliance, a dalliance that would result in a remarkable child? Surely not. Surely she would have Seen-- but her visions were never about herself, only about Max. 

She was nearly as pale as Max when she glanced into a mirror, lips stained from the cherries, gaze almost fearful, and she stared at herself for a moment, willing the Sight to give her something, anything, anything at all… but except for the Nine Day Watch, the Sight didn’t work on demand. She sighed and went to find her companions only after she was sure she’d stopped trembling from the nature of her doubts.

She’d seen Jonah get pulled into a room across the hall, and tapped on his door. He opened the door quickly, wide-eyed and practically walking into her in his haste to get out and close it behind him.

“What were those things?” he asked, sounding slightly strangled. She had to bite back a laugh.

“The Charter-sendings? Some of them are so old that they only know how to do one thing any more and they’ll be damned if they don’t do it. Every Abhorsen made at least one.”

“And Max is number fifty-five?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lot of bored sendings with dementia.” She gave him a long look up and down: the sendings had dressed him in a yellow surcoat with a silver trowel emblem over the heart like a crest, over breeches that actually covered his ankles in a way his stolen Scout uniform hadn’t. He realized she was eyeing him, then really looked at her, the distraction he’d reeled into the hallway wearing falling away into perfect focus. His mouth fell open slightly. “You’re… you’re very beautiful in that dress.”

“It looks like the sendings figured out what you are much more easily than we did,” she said, reaching up to brush her fingers over the trowel. She’d never taken a compliment gracefully in her life and wasn’t about to start now. He looked straight down at her and she smiled up at him. “Let’s go find Max.”

He'd been pulled upstairs in the assault by the sendings, and Kinga had Seen the inside of this house many times, leading Jonah right to the door of the master bedroom. “One second,” Max called when she tapped at the door, and he was still tugging his surcoat straight as he pulled it open, tiny silver keys embroidered on black making his pale skin look like the snow that piled up on the mountains she flew over nearly every day. “Oh! That's… almost the same color as your eyes,” he said, and smiled sweetly at her before he looked up at Jonah and his eyes widened. “The sendings are never wrong, so we must be right. It looks right on you… yellow suits you.”

“I don't wear it much,” Jonah said. “Maybe I should.”

“Well, as long as you're here. Or in Belisaere or the Glacier. Better not to go walking around the countryside in a forgotten device, though.”

“If it's forgotten, why would it matter?” Jonah asked, and Max shook his head. 

“Because the ones who might remember are the ones most likely to mean you harm.” Kinga shuddered a little at the thought of a necromancer hunting Jonah in the Borderlands, chasing him down with the implacable, starving Dead. 

“I can defend myself, you know,” Jonah said. “I'm not as naive as I look. I'm not helpless, either.” 

“You won't need to defend yourself from anything here,” Kinga said. “Now where are we going?” 

“Upstairs,” Max said, and they headed up the tower to the study. Either Max had said something or the sendings were prescient, because there was lunch waiting for them in the round room lined with books. Jonah was instantly drawn to the food, just as ravenous as any growing young man would be despite his very unusual expenditure of energy. 

“I’m glad you found me today,” he mumbled through a mouthful of bread still warm from the oven. “Because I was running out of food.”

“There’s not much to forage along the Wall, either,” Max said. “Add that to the growing list of evidence that this was meant to happen, I suppose.” Kinga leaned around Jonah to steal a piece of cheese and nibbled on it as she walked around the room, seeing in truth what she’d Seen so many times before: the huge redwood desk with its carved dragon heads at each corner, the matching chairs upholstered in black and silver, the walls completely lined with books except for where the stairs entered and where a ladder lead upwards, the hanging brass lanterns that burned not with oil but with Charter marks, complete with Max there as she’d only ever Seen this place.

As they clustered around the dragon desk, slightly preoccupied with the quite good food, Max retrieved paper and a quill and looked from Kinga to Jonah and back again. “All right, what do we need to know before we make this attempt?”

“I think the two of us need to know how Jonah does it by himself before we try doing it all together,” Kinga said, and Jonah bit his lip against a laugh. “What?”

“Phrasing,” he said, and Kinga’s brow furrowed. “Never mind.” Max was doing a terrible job of restraining a smile as he wrote _how to make a Charter Stone_ on the paper and below it wrote _blood price_ and _master marks_. 

“We have to figure out where to put it,” Max said, adding _location_ to the list. “The ones in Belisaere are underground and in water. I don’t know if that’s important.”

“Is there any place like that on this island?” Kinga asked. Max shook his head. “What’s the closest you’ve got?”

“Underground would probably be down the well, but it’s far from a sure thing we’d ever come back up from it, given who’s down there,” he said cryptically. “In water… there’s a channel for boats that the Wallmakers built into the island, that runs along the west side of it. Maybe we could put it on the other side of the dock at the western courtyard.”

“It might not need to be in water,” Jonah said. “I honestly don’t know how it would work in water, wouldn’t the blood just wash away?”

“Where do you think we should put it?” Kinga asked. “After all, you’re the one with the instincts here.”

“I haven’t seen enough of this place to know yet,” Jonah said, “but I’ll have a better idea after the tour Max keeps promising us.”

“The tour you kept getting distracted from while I was attempting to give it,” Max said. “And then we all got forcibly bathed the moment we entered the house. I promise I will show you around from the edge of the falls to the top of the tower.”

“How high does it go?”

“Only one more floor.” Max waved toward the ladder leading to the trap door into the observatory. “You’re _really_ going to love it up there, I’m certain.” Jonah took that as permission to investigate, lanky limbs taking him up the ladder rapidly. When Kinga made to follow him, Max gently closed his chilly hand around her wrist when she put a hand on the ladder. “A moment of your time?”

“You can have as much of it as you like,” she said, and a smile touched his lips and faded quickly.

“You only See me, you said.”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Seven years.” His eyes widened, and the hand on her wrist tightened.

“If you’ve been Seeing me for seven years then why didn’t you ever try to meet me?” There was hurt in his voice that she never would have expected.

“I never Saw us together,” she said, and he shook his head.

“You don’t See everything that happens. Just because it wasn’t foreordained, you avoided me that long?”

“I didn’t think you’d like me,” she said in a rush, cheeks flaring with the truth. “I thought you’d think I was a pesky little girl.”

“You’re not pesky,” he said, and let go of her wrist. “And you’re not a little girl.” His cold hands framed her face for the second time and she let her eyes fall shut, pressing one overheated cheek into the relief of his soothing touch. A moment later his lips brushed against hers, and when she opened to him without a thought she discovered that though his lips were cold, his mouth was warm. “You never answered my question,” he said quietly when their lips parted.

“You asked me a question?” She felt light-headed staring into his dark eyes, and she wasn’t sure if she relished the dizziness or resented it for weakening her composure.

“I asked if you thought a fountain was a suitable romantic gesture.”

“I told you, I didn’t See you courting me.”

“And I told you, you don’t See everything that happens. Give me a hint, at least. What do you like?”

“I like flying,” she said immediately, and a smile crinkled his eyes. “I like making things.”

“What kind of things?” 

“Like the pavilion,” she said, and slid one of the rings off her hand, a solid piece of silver etched with Charter marks so small he could barely see them when he inspected it. “Like this.”

“What does this do?”

“I’d show you, but it would damage this lovely room.” He arched a brow, and she grinned. “It’s a Charter-sending with a very large pike to guard my back if I ever need to retreat.”

“In a ring? That’s clever! I should show you the workshop, you’d--”

“Are you coming up here or am I on time-out?” Jonah called through the trapdoor, and Kinga flushed and took her ring back.

“After you,” Max said, and her eyes narrowed.

“You’re just going to look up my dress.”

“I wasn’t, but I can go first if you like. I don’t want to give you any reason not to trust me.”

“Good,” she said, and started up the ladder without another word. For a moment Max just watched her climb, puzzled, and he didn’t set a hand on the ladder until she’d reached the observation room. When he made it to the top, her warm smile just confused him more. She kicked off the slippers the sendings had provided her and dug her toes into the thick carpet, midnight blue and dotted with white in a constellation map.

“This room is _awesome_ ,” Jonah said, and Kinga had to agree with him as she looked around. In every direction, the transparent walls gave them a clear view of the leagues around the shores of the Ratterlin and far past the foot of the Long Cliffs. There was a roof, and she’d thought it was red-tiled when she saw it outside, but there was nothing impeding her view of the sky in any direction. Sunlight flooded the room, warming it despite a slight draft blowing in, and glinted off every piece of metal there, including the telescope Jonah was stooping to look through, his glasses in hand and his eye pressed to the lens as he scanned the horizon. 

“The purpose of it is to see far around the house, but I love to come up here at night just to look up,” Max said. 

“Are you a stargazer?” Kinga teased, and he huffed a laugh. 

“Until I pass the Ninth Gate, this is the only sky full of stars I should be looking at.”

“Have you been that far?” He hesitated, then nodded once and looked away from her. It was clear that he didn’t want to talk about it, so she swallowed the other questions she had and came over to Jonah’s side, leaning against the stool he’d ignored entirely. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m just seeing how far up the river I can see with this,” he said, and straightened up to put his glasses back on. “It looks like it cuts through a forest.”

“If you could see the length of the kingdom through that, you’d see where I’m from,” Kinga said.

“A glacier,” Jonah said questioningly, and she nodded.

“The Clayr’s Glacier. Between the mountains Starmount and Sunfall. We live under Starmount. It’s almost due north of here, the Ratterlin runs nearly straight.”

“All you have to do is follow the river to get home,” Jonah said.

“That’s all I do to visit the Glacier,” Max agreed. “You should see it. The Great Library of the Clayr is astonishingly comprehensive.”

“He will see it,” Kinga said. “If he’s a Wallmaker, I think he’d benefit from a little education about who they were and what they did, beyond what either of us can tell him. He’s never been Seen before, which I suppose makes sense if he’s been beyond the Wall his whole life, but surely he’ll be Seen again.”

“You Saw me, though,” Jonah said. “You Saw all three of us.”

“I’d never Seen myself before that,” she said, a little faintly. “It was strange. But now I’ve Seen myself with both of you twice.”

“Twice?” Max asked. “You only told me about once.”

“I Saw us finding Jonah,” she said. “Right before it happened.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You knew we’d find him. It was just a fragment of conversation. Barely anything.”

“I wonder if you’ll See us again,” Jonah said. “If we’ll keep company for long enough for that.”

“We’ll keep company at least a couple more days,” Max said. “Because there’s no way we can be ready to raise a Great Charter Stone today with all we don’t know.”

“I have no complaints keeping company with the two of you,” Kinga said. “I already know what sort of person Max is--”

“Oh?” Max interjected, brows arched. 

“Trustworthy,” she said. “Deliberative. And shockingly gentle given what you do.”

“I can’t object to any of those descriptors,” he said, but he was smiling brightly as he said it. 

“And I don’t know Jonah as well, but as of yet he seems far too curious for his own safety and far too capable for that to bite him in the ass.”

“Thank you?” Jonah said, uncertain it was a compliment. She smirked at him and beckoned him to lean down.

“The only thing I don’t like about you is that you’re too tall to easily kiss,” she said, catching a hand behind his neck and tugging him the last few inches down she needed to be able to meet his lips. He made a startled sound but let her keep him awkwardly bent over right there, his breath gusting hot against her lips before he got the idea and kissed her back, artless and enthusiastic in a way that she found intensely endearing. “Oh,” she breathed, and dragged her nails over the back of his neck when she let him go. “But I can live with it.” When she turned to look at Max, she caught him with his lip between his teeth and his gaze avid on them. 

“He’s not too tall as long as he’s willing,” Max pointed out, and crossed the room to stand in front of Jonah, looking up at him hopefully. “So… are you willing?” Jonah didn’t bother with a verbal reply, but lowered himself in a more comfortable way than stooping, long legs going out to either side until he was well within range to kiss Max easily, but he jerked back from the first brush of lips with a gasp.

“You’re cold,” Jonah whispered, and Max’s lips pulled to one side ruefully.

“I walk in Death,” he said. “It’s an occupational hazard.”

“Do you ever warm up?” 

“I am cordially inviting you to try your best to warm me.” Right next to them, Kinga inhaled sharply, the challenge hitting her directly in her competitive spirit, and Max glanced at her and smiled. “You said we would survive as long as we stayed out of my bed until after we made the Stone?”

“Probably,” she said. “You look like you have alternate ideas.”

“You ever daydream about something you really don’t think will ever happen even though you badly want it to?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Jonah asked.

“I didn’t imagine this many participants, but I’ve thought about bringing a lover up here… more times than I care to admit to.”

“That’s funny,” Kinga said, and he gave her a perturbed look. “Not funny like a joke, funny weird. Because I’ve… you know I’ve Seen you for a while now… I’ve Seen you up here a few times, and once I… might have daydreamed about being with you. Like that. In this room.”

“Are you sure it was a daydream and not the Sight?” Jonah asked, and she nodded.

“I know the difference. If I’d Seen it, I wouldn’t have had to make it up. But I did.” 

“I think that’s two votes in favor,” Max said with a laugh. “What do you say, Jonah?”

“I-- yes? I didn’t know this place existed to daydream about it, but it sure beats a boring bedroom for an interesting first time.” He bit his lip and shook his head a little. “Absolutely none of this is anything like I daydreamed about my first time going, but absolutely none of this is anything I thought was even possible two weeks ago.”

“More like two days ago,” Kinga said. “You know, most Clayr are intimate for the first time after walking through the Perfumed Gardens, but I much prefer your orchard.”

“You’re both virgins?” The worry lines deepened around Max’s eyes. “I can’t… besmirch your innocence on a floor!”

“That’s patronizing,” Kinga said, and before Max could open his mouth to defend himself, she added, “Innocence is a temporary condition at best and I’m old enough to decide how I want to be relieved of it, and I think Jonah is too. And since we’re already in agreement about the location and I think we’re in accord on participation--” She glanced at Jonah, who nodded eagerly. “--that small a thing is nothing to be precious about, Max.” 

“That’s totally fair,” Max said. “I guess if I’m the only one with a problem with it then it’s not actually a problem. Now my real problem becomes not disappointing either of you.”

“I don’t think it’s possible for me to be disappointed with anything that’s about to happen,” Jonah said, with all the solemnity of a vow. “Unless you push me down the ladder and go off just the two of you, in which case I have a few objections.”

“Don’t worry so much,” Kinga said, laying a hand against Max’s pallid cheek and offering him a warm smile. “Have fun with it.” Ryelle’s words echoed out of her mouth and the way his gaze softened made her wonder how much of this was a matter of Clayr record beyond what she had Seen herself. 

“Oh, I can promise that I will have fun,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her again. The chill of his lips belied the passion with which their mouths met, and Kinga wondered how many kisses it might take to chase the cold from his skin. Jonah must have been thinking along similar lines because he wrapped his arms around Max from behind and rested his cheek on the top of Max’s head, the hint of stubble darkening his cheek rasping against Max’s close-cropped, greying hair. One of his big hands landed on Kinga’s waist; she could feel the heat of it through the silk of her dress, effortlessly covering her entire hip, and for the first time let herself really consider what it’d mean to be caught between them: Max as cool and silver as the moon, Jonah burning hot and bright as the sun. Max certainly seemed to appreciate Jonah’s heat, leaning back into him with a sigh of contentment. “You’re _so_ warm. I could bask on you like a cat in a sunbeam.”

“Could you, now.” Jonah sounded the way Kinga felt: a little nervous and a lot eager. “I’d like to be a little more proactive in trying to get you heated up though.” 

“That’s more than acceptable,” Max said. “Actually, that’s preferable.” He tilted his head back to look up at Jonah and got a kiss immediately. Kinga slid her hands underneath the key-marked surcoat to find that he wasn’t quite so cold all over, equal parts curious and intending to distract him. It was a successful gambit: he gasped and looked at her, and she grinned at him. “Have you Seen me doing this with other people?” 

“Yes,” she said. “Twice. Once when I was much younger and once a couple of years ago.” His cheeks turned pink, and she added, more softly, “It was harder the second time, because I realized I was jealous.”

“You were?”

“Of course I was,” she scoffed. “How shouldn’t I have been? I’ve been Seeing you for seven years, of course I got attached to you.”

“I still don’t understand why you avoided me, then.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention, because I’ve told you the reason.”

“Do you love him?” Jonah asked, innocent and curious, and Kinga could feel her face flare red. 

“What kind of a question is that?” she sputtered, looking up at him with a frown.

“The kind of question whose answer I’m highly invested in,” Max said, and the breathless tone of his voice made her look down to meet his eyes and the plea they contained. 

“What do you think,” she said, defensive and starting to get prickly, and his face fell.

“Oh.” _Oh no_ , she thought, and sighed.

“Of course I love you, idiot. But it’s easy to love someone at a distance. Reality has a habit of falling short.” 

“Ha ha,” he said flatly, and she rolled her eyes.

“That wasn’t a joke about your height, either. I can’t say anything right, can I? I’m sorry. See, this is why I didn’t want to meet you. It wasn’t because of you. It was because of me. Because of the way I am.”

“And what do you think is the way you are, Kinga of the Clayr?” How he could be so gentle when she’d clearly just upset him was a mystery to her, but the soft tone of his question was just as much a balm as the cool touch of his hand curling around the back of her flushed neck.

“Awkward,” she whispered. “Angry for no reason. Defective.”

“You seem none of those things to me.”

“Not worthy of love,” she added, and looked up sharply when Jonah snorted in disbelief.

“You’re kidding, right? _You’re_ not worthy of love? You’re fierce and fearless and you look like… like an angel.”

“What’s an angel?” she asked, and his eyes widened.

“You don’t believe in angels on this side of the Wall?” She shook her head, and he looked puzzled for a moment. “They’re, um… they have wings, and they’re… awe-inspiringly beautiful and very powerful.”

“Oh,” she said, and it was her turn to look puzzled. “You think that about me?”

“He’s not wrong,” Max said. “You’re exceptionally lovely, and I don’t need to see you casting to know how strong a Charter Mage you are after seeing the things you’ve made. And you have a Paperwing that you love to fly.”

“It’s not mine,” she said dumbly. One compliment made her uncomfortable, but a torrent of them sent a jolt of adrenaline through her. A small part of her brain told her to flee, the insecure little girl she still sometimes felt she was, but… she wasn’t that girl any more. She might even be the person they thought she was. Well, if she wouldn’t run, then she had to do something with the crackle of energy ricocheting through her. Wrapping a trembling hand in the front of Max’s surcoat, she yanked him in for a kiss that was nearly an assault, mouths crushed together painfully in her haste to keep him from saying anything more to embarrass her. Cool fingers threaded through her hair and he tugged softly, trying to pull her back a little, but she wouldn’t concede anything to him, catching his lower lip between her teeth and holding him for a moment when he tried to pull away. 

“Angry for no reason. I see,” he repeated softly once she released him, and she bowed her head, but it wasn’t her fault they hadn’t listened when they told her what she was. His finger under her chin lifted her gaze to meet his, and he was smiling slightly. “But I still think you’re wrong about the other things.”

“Are you angry, or are you afraid?” Jonah asked. “Because if you can tell me there’s nothing here for me to fear, I can tell you the same thing.”

“I don’t know if your intuition is astonishing or infuriating,” Kinga said, letting go of Max’s surcoat and looking up at Jonah with a snarl curling her lip, but she pointed at him and then the wide expanse of carpet unoccupied by furniture. “Sit down or something. I need to be able to reach you.”

“Wait a second,” Max said, reluctantly leaving his place caught between them to retrieve a folded blue blanket from the other side of the telescope and shake it out over the carpet. “I told you I come up here at night a lot.” He didn’t even finish his sentence before Jonah was sprawled on his back, eyes closed and face tipped up into the abundant sunshine. His ankles stuck out past the edge of the blanket and his bare feet wiggled back and forth over the deep carpet. 

“That works,” Kinga said, and hesitated a second before shrugging out of the green gown and draping it over the smooth metal of the telescope. _It would be a pity to wrinkle the silk_ , she told herself, but it had been the only article of clothing the sendings had provided her. She took a deep breath before she turned around to find two pairs of dark eyes absolutely rapt at the sight of her. “Oh!” Jonah’s eyes had opened when he heard Max gasp, and she’d never seen such wonder before, especially not aimed at _her_. 

“ _Wow_ ,” Jonah breathed, and his eyes went huge behind his glasses when she straddled his thighs and dragged him up into a kiss that was only a hint less painful than the one she’d given Max. “Ow!” He propped himself up on his elbows and did nothing to dissuade her from biting. Beside them, Max made a whimpery sound, and when she released Jonah and turned to look at him he was bare to the waist and just as pale all over, kneeling next to them. “We had a purpose here,” Jonah said, and put his hand on Max’s chest to spread warmth under his cupped fingers, right above Max’s heart. Even though that was nearly the warmest part of Max, Jonah’s touch still heated his skin with the comfort of a night spent the perfect distance from a fire.

“You’re right.” Kinga moved off of Jonah to wrap her arms around Max’s neck and press their skin together, and a tiny sigh escaped her. His cool skin felt like the perfect antidote to the heat pulsing from her core that threatened to consume her in a conflagration of more than she’d ever felt at once before. His hands slid down her back and followed the curve of her bottom, squeezing softly, and she tucked her face against the bend of his neck and tried not to embarrass herself by cooing with pleasure at his touch.

The rustle of clothes being set aside heralded Jonah’s return with nothing on at all, and both Kinga and Max paused when they turned to look at him, momentarily speechless at the sight of what seemed like an endless length of limbs. Jonah was rangy and big all over, and he smiled a little shyly at their obvious fascination with him as he lowered himself to the blanket beside them. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re magnificent?” Max asked, and Jonah bit his lip and shook his head. “Well, I’m happy to be the first, then.”

“I completely agree,” Kinga said. Yes, the mission they’d had in mind was warming Max up, but she couldn’t help reaching out for Jonah just to feel his warmth for herself, hands stroking down the breadth of his chest and following the lines of his narrow hips. Intriguingly, his cock twitched as her hands descended, and that was both eye-catching and worth replicating. She traced her nails over the crests of his hips and it twitched again, accompanied by a whimper that was just too delicious. She looked up when she wrapped a hand around him to watch his reaction, which was beyond gratifying-- flushed cheeks, parted lips, a dazed look in his dark eyes. “Oh, he was right, you _are_ warm.”

“I always am,” Jonah breathed, and he ducked his head to kiss her. Apparently he’d decided to take his cues from Max and not Kinga as far as kissing was concerned: he was gentle and sweet, one big hand coming up to frame her face as he deepened the kiss. A cool touch low on both their backs let them know that Max had shed the rest of his clothes and was right there, and as one Kinga and Jonah both wrapped an arm around him and pulled him between them, his back to Jonah’s front, surrounding him in warmth and affection.

“Oh, this is _glorious_ ,” Max sighed, leaning back with his head on Jonah’s shoulder. Kinga took the opportunity to kiss along Max’s throat, feeling his pulse flutter under her lips, determined to chase the chill of Death from his porcelain skin. One part of him that was pressed against her was warm to the touch, and she curled her fingers around it and stroked him curiously. “Ah!”

“Let’s lie down,” Jonah suggested, spooning up behind Max so they were fully pressed together. Kinga moved to sandwich him between them, but Max held her back slightly, cool hand pressed between her breasts.

“I’d greatly enjoy touching you,” he said, and she rolled onto her back and gave him a heavy-lidded look of invitation that became tightly closed eyes when his chilly fingers found one of her nipples and rolled it between them. “Oh, please don’t close your eyes… they’re so beautiful, and I love the way you look at me.” She meant to open them, she really did, but for an instant--

_“Trust me,” Jonah said, and he looked perfectly confident, even if his companions didn’t. He reached out for them, blood dripping from both his hands. Kinga clasped his hand first, the cut on her hand pressed against his, and suddenly the falling drops of blood were bright with Charter marks._

_“Oh!” Her eyes widened, and she reached for Max, who took both their hands at once. Now they were dripping radiance at three points, the Charter alive in their blood and summoned by its mingling. They looked into each other’s faces to find no fear left in any of them, only determination and the knowledge that what they were doing was right, and as one, they began to speak--_

“We’re going to do it,” she gasped as her eyes snapped open. “The Great Charter Stone, we’re going to do it, we’re going to figure it out.”

“Well, yeah,” Jonah said, but Max caught the look in her eyes and reached up to touch her cheek.

“Did you See it?” She nodded. “Before, or after?”

“During,” she said. “At the beginning. Our blood--”

“Is the price steep?” 

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” she said, and moved his hand from her cheek back to her breast. “Don’t get distracted.”

“You’re the one who’s having visions,” Max pointed out, but squeezed her gently, thumb teasing her nipple. “I think you’re the one who’s distracted.”

“Less talking and more kissing,” Jonah said. “I think you both need a lot more kissing.” Neither of them were going to argue against that, but Max moved in first, not about to let Kinga get in another one of her forceful kisses when he could tease her with soft little pecks until she begged for a real kiss. This did not go according to his plan; after two little pecks, she curved her hand at the back of his head and held him still so she could take the deeper kiss she wanted. Jonah kissed her fingers and then went back to nuzzling the nape of Max’s neck, one big hand sweeping up and down Max’s side but not managing to bring color or heat into his paper-pale skin. “I’d like some kisses too,” he added hopefully, and Max turned in his arms to give him one.

“You know, I’d never really imagined two men together,” Kinga said reflectively from where she was avidly watching them. “But seeing the two of you is… very, very appealing.” She traced her fingertips up the outside of Max’s thigh, then reached between them to find them pressed together, telling them apart from touch: Max thick and warm under her fingers, Jonah longer and much, much warmer. Her hand wasn’t big enough to grasp them both at once, but from the gasps they were both making, what she was doing was appreciated. When she wrapped her hand around Jonah and stroked, he yelped and ducked his face against Max’s shoulder and spilled all over her fingers. “Ohh…”

“In… in my defense… I’m a teenage boy,” Jonah said breathlessly, but he didn’t lift his head. Max kissed his messy hair and petted the back of his neck.

“No defense necessary,” he said. “Being a teenage boy also has certain advantages. You’ll see.”

“I suppose you won’t be that easy,” Kinga said, and she curled her messy fingers around Max and made him shiver. “Being experienced and all.”

“Not that experienced lately,” Max said, thrusting into her grasp before he could control himself. “Don’t set your expectations too high.” She hid her smirk in the back of his neck and wrapped herself around his back more tightly, tangling her legs with his, her hand moving at a teasingly slow pace to pay him back for how he teased her with kisses.

“I have no expectations beyond pleasing you at the moment,” she breathed into his ear, and he whimpered and let go of Jonah, who sat up slightly to better watch this enticing scene. “Although I may be developing expectations of being allowed to please you in the future, beyond what I’ve Seen. Is that too high?”

“Nnnno,” Max sighed, “that’s the perfect height for them.” He reached back to thread his fingers through her hair, pulling gently. “Kinga… _please_.” If she’d get to do this again, then there was no reason not to give him what he wanted now: there’d be future chances to tease him the way she’d thought about so many times. She sped her hand up and then bit where his neck met his shoulder and he made a sound that was almost a wail, too overwrought to moderate his voice when she’d demolished his control so swiftly. Over his shoulder, she aimed a smirk at Jonah, whose eyes were wide and cheeks were flushed.

“What about you?” he asked her, eyes tracing the curves of her that he could see behind Max’s stocky body. “You should be pleased too, shouldn’t you?”

“Are you offering to take on the responsibility?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. “I may need guidance, but yes, absolutely.” Kinga kissed the back of Max’s neck again and let go of him, laughing when he rolled flat on his back as soon as she moved out from behind him. 

“Good, because I think Max might be useless for a minute or two,” she said, and straddled Jonah’s lap. His hands came up to cup her breasts, and she purred. 

“I’m not useless,” Max said weakly. “I can… advise.”

“I want to see what Jonah will do without guidance though. Surely he has _some_ ideas.”

“I have a few,” Jonah said, and lowered his head to take her nipple in his mouth and gently bite it. She made a throaty sound and scratched her fingers through his already messy hair, and he moved to repeat the action on the other side, then looked up at her, dark eyes seeking her approval. 

“A good start,” she said, and he brightened and skimmed his hands over her thighs, thumbs trailing up her inner thighs until they reached the apex of her legs and the wetness that had been building there since the moment she saw the wonder in his gaze. “Be gentle…” The reminder was unnecessary. He explored her folds with one very careful thumb before he pressed a long finger into her slowly. “Oh, _good,_ ” she sighed. Big hands meant big fingers, and she’d only ever touched herself there, so that single finger was already more than she was accustomed to, but it felt fantastic.

Coolness against her back let her know that Max had recovered, and she leaned back, letting him take her weight gratefully, as her legs were going weak from Jonah’s exploration. “Let me help,” he breathed in her ear, and the instant she nodded there were two chill fingers at her center, rubbing her right where she would have asked him to do if she’d needed to specify. The contrast of Jonah’s hot hand and Max’s cool one was unprecedented and devastatingly effective, and Kinga’s climax sent her reeling bonelessly in Max’s arms, trembling all over for long moments after both their hands were removed from her. She lost track of what was going on for a minute, eyes shut tight and body not responding to her commands, and when she peeled them open again she was met with two concerned faces hovering over her.

“I thought we broke you,” Jonah said.

“No, that’s what’s supposed to happen if you do it really right,” Max told him.

“Mmmrph,” Kinga said, and pushed up onto her elbows. “Is it really?”

“Do you feel broken?” Max asked her, and she shook her head.

“I feel glorious.”

“Glorious is a good word for it,” Jonah said. “Me too.”

“Then we’re in agreement,” Max said. “And if it’s okay with you, I’d like to just lay here in the sun a little longer.” Kinga didn’t need to speak her agreement, just rolled onto her stomach and stretched as long as she could before relaxing with a sigh.

“I might fall asleep,” Jonah said, but he stretched out next to her, pillowing his head on his crossed arms. Max cuddled up to his side and partially on top of him.

“I was planning on using you as my own personal sunbeam for a cat nap,” he confessed, and Jonah laughed and curled an arm around him. Kinga turned her head to look at them and tried not to wonder how long this idyllic moment could be allowed to last. Then something in the distance caught her eye and she raised herself up, squinting to see it better.

“It’s a Paperwing,” she said, and got up to look through the telescope. “It’s a Clayr Paperwing.”

“So much for a cat nap,” Max sighed.


	4. Homework, History, and Extra Credit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Clayr messenger brings news... and a lot of library books, for the edification of the newly revealed Wallmaker. Kinga has doubts. Jonah opens up, and things begin to make sense. A vision brings even more doubts for all of them to chew over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No porn in this chapter, but a lot of feelings.

There was barely room for a third Paperwing on the platform, but its pilot had no problem landing it, green and silver next to its sister craft as Ryelle debarked and lifted a wooden chest from the space behind the pilot’s seat. She carried it up to the gate and waited for the Charter-sending to open it, and she made it nearly to the bright door of the House before she was greeted by the Abhorsen, the Wallmaker, and her cousin Clayr pouring out of the door, all a similar amount of disheveled. “Cousins,” she said, barely restraining a smile, and pushed the chest into Jonah’s arms. “These are mostly for you, so you can carry them. They usually wouldn’t leave the Glacier, but anyone of the blood is allowed to check books out from the Great Library.”

“Ryelle!” Kinga didn’t know what to say. She’d been gone barely a day and already someone was checking up on her? Ryelle turned to clasp her hands and smile at her.

“You’ve been busy. There are ripples upon ripples now from what you’ll do here, all rippling out from him.” She tilted her head at Jonah. “We couldn’t See anything to do with him until he crossed the Wall, and now… what we’ve Seen means I’m here with all the books that could help the great good you’re planning.”

“How did you never introduce me to Kinga before now?” Max asked. “As many times as I’ve been to the Glacier--”

“You hadn’t ever been Seen together before two days ago, but since then there have been several visions regarding the three of you. Enough to be more than curious and into certain. Let’s go in, we have much to discuss.” Max lead Jonah up the stairs to the study, and Kinga paused when Ryelle didn’t let go of her hands. “We’ve Seen you here, at different points in your life,” she said softly, and smiled. “At one point, very much with child.”

“Oh,” Kinga said, and didn’t smile back. Ryelle’s smile faded into a questioning gaze, and Kinga bit her lip and asked, “Whose child?”

“That’s for you to know,” Ryelle said, the smile returning. 

“But what if I can’t know?” 

“I suppose you’ll have to wait and See how tall your child will be,” and now she was almost laughing. Kinga scowled, and she did laugh. “Oh, Kinga, you look so happy then. Would it really matter?”

“Yes,” Kinga said, like it was obvious. “Because that would tell me if my child will walk in Death or stay--”

“Safe?” Ryelle shook her head. “We haven’t Seen that far. Not yet.”

“Well. As long as I’m going to be staying here, here _is_ the safest place I could be.” Kinga disengaged her hands from Ryelle’s and started up the stairs.

“Did you take my advice?” 

“Hmm?”

“Are you having fun with it? You seem solemn.”

“I was wondering about the reason I was meant to be here. I thought it might be to do with a child… but the last Clayr to lie with an Abhorsen did it only the once.”

“The reason,” Ryelle said thoughtfully. “The reason is the Stone you’re going to raise and the ripples coming out from that. The child is one of those ripples. But you won’t be here briefly.” Kinga didn’t look back as they ascended, so Ryelle didn’t see her satisfied smile until they were in the study. Jonah looked up from a thick book in his hands and smiled at Ryelle.

“Hello. I’m Jonah. Max says you’re of the Clayr too?” There was a clear question in his gaze as it shifted from Kinga to Ryelle, for they looked nothing alike. Ryelle’s nut-brown skin, ice-blue eyes, and blonde hair were typical of the Clayr, but the only one he’d ever met was the atypical Kinga.

“I’m Ryelle,” she said, “and it is a pleasure to meet you, Jonah.” 

“She’s not just of the Clayr, she’s the quintessential Clayr,” Kinga said, her smile gone, looking down at the books that had been stacked on the desk and picking one up at random, paging through it without seeing it. “I’m a defective Clayr.”

“It won’t be any more true for the repetition of it because it was never true in the first place,” Ryelle said. “You are an Awakened Daughter of the Clayr and there is nothing wrong with you.”

“ _That’s_ what you meant,” Max said. “I still disagree with you. You’re not defective. You’re a… an angel.” Kinga lifted her eyes to meet his, and he smiled. “You’re the first angel of the Old Kingdom.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips when she dropped her gaze again. “So what are all these books?”

“History books about the founding of the Old Kingdom… history, but mostly lore, honestly, about the Wallmakers. And treatises on the raising and mending of Charter Stones from King Touchstone and Prince Sameth.” Those last were what Jonah reached for, running his thumb over the edge of a book in the hand of the man who he was almost sure had to be his father. Ryelle pulled a Charter-spelled dagger out of the chest and handed it to Kinga. “You’ll need this.”

“You said you’d had multiple visions about us?” Max asked. “What were we doing?”

“Seven Clayr reported fragments of Sight containing the three of you yesterday alone. You were here in most of them,” Ryelle said. “In the house, in the orchard, on the lawn. Many times there was a spelled item in Jonah or Kinga’s hands. In one of them you were landing your Paperwing and they were coming to meet you.” She met Kinga’s eyes and Kinga blinked. _Oh._ “Four of them showed a Great Charter Stone here.”

“Where?” Kinga asked. She’d Seen them making it, but what was around them had been unclear. 

“On the lawn, between the fig tree and the path.” 

“Oh, that’s a good place for it,” Max said, and Ryelle smiled.

“Yes, that’s why you’ll put it there. You were also Seen in the Abhorsen’s rooms in the Glacier, so we’ll be holding those ready, because we don’t think that vision is far off. You will have to return the books to the Library, after all.” 

“Is there anything else you can tell us about the visions?” Jonah asked, and Ryelle nodded.

“From what each Clayr reported of what she Saw… you’re going to be happy,” she said. “When you’re together, you’re happy.” 

“So we’ll go on as we began,” Max said. “Thank you, Ryelle.” 

“I’ll see you at the Glacier soon,” Ryelle said, and Kinga’s eyes widened.

“Aren’t you staying?”

“I need to leave now to make it home before sundown. I’m the Voice of the Watch with Sanar still, you know. But I wanted to come give you this myself, Kinga… so I could tell you that I’m proud of what you’ve become.” For a second Kinga didn’t react at all, and then she clutched Ryelle’s arms and pressed her face against her shoulder, not wanting anyone to see her with tears in her eyes. Ryelle gently rubbed her back until Kinga took a deep breath and lifted her head, almost composed.

“Thank you,” she said. “I won’t keep you.” Ryelle turned to descend the stairs and then paused.

“I almost forgot that I brought some things of Kinga’s. Jonah, would you come with me to carry them back?” It was a transparent ruse to Kinga, but Jonah went along innocently. She wondered what personal matter Ryelle had to discuss with him, but Max came around the desk and took her into his arms and the concern in his eyes wiped away her questions.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so. I’m not sure. Fragments of Sight like that aren’t always likely… focusing the Nine Day Watch produces visions that are very likely, but glimpses that only one person sees aren’t always… they’re possibilities, not probabilities.”

“You trust in your own Sight,” he pointed out, and she pursed her lips at him. 

“My Sight only shows me you. Perhaps I only trust it because of how trustworthy you are.”

“Is it that hard to believe we could be happy?”

“No,” she breathed. “It’s not hard to believe at all. But I don’t deserve it.”

“Not worthy of love,” he said, “Another one of these lies you believe about yourself. I’m sorry, Kinga, but I have to tell you that you’re just flat-out wrong about that one.” He didn’t look sorry. He looked like he wanted to kiss her. She bit her lip and his gaze fell to her mouth and didn’t lift again. “I’ll just have to convince you that you are worth loving.” The cool of his lips forestalled an argument she hadn’t wanted to make anyways, and she leaned into him and let him show her how he thought she should be treated. 

They heard Jonah coming well before he was back, but he paused in the doorway to catch them kissing. “It’s cute how well the two of you fit together,” he said, crossing the room to pick up the same slim volume he’d been looking at before and arranging his lanky limbs in what didn’t look like a terribly comfortable slouch in one of the redwood chairs. “Ryelle let me look at her Paperwing as she was getting ready to go. I couldn’t see it wake up when I was in the back of yours, Kinga, but that’s really, really cool. It’s almost a bird.”

“Some of them are temperamental,” Kinga said. “Ryelle’s is. She’s the one who taught me how to fly, she recruited me to the Paperwing corps when I turned ten. I was bored and willful and it gave me something to focus on.”

“She told me that she taught you. She also said that you’d be an excellent teacher for me,” Jonah said, and he looked down at the book in his hands ruefully. “But flight training sounds like an extracurricular, and it looks like I have a lot of homework to do.”

“We all do,” Max said, and he skimmed a hand down Kinga’s back when he let go of her and turned back to the table. “Would you prefer the history or the lore?”

“I’ll read about the Wallmakers and you read about the Kingdom,” she said. It was a given where Jonah would be starting. They divvied up the books according to topic and got settled around the desk, but Kinga, at least, couldn’t keep her mind on the text when every time she looked up she saw either Jonah chewing his lip thoughtfully or Max doing a bad job of pretending he was paying any more attention to his book than he was to her. “I can’t do this right now,” she said a little under an hour later after making it through maybe ten pages. “I’m-- I need to take a walk or something. Change out of this dress maybe.”

“But it’s so pretty on you,” Jonah said, and she arched a brow at Max.

“Yeah. But he keeps staring at me and I keep getting distracted by the look in his eyes. Where’d you leave my stuff?”

“Oh, the Charter-sendings took it as soon as I got inside. I don’t know where they put it.”

“I’ll find it,” she said, and put the book in her hands down.

“It’s probably wherever they brought you at first,” Max said. “You really don’t have to change though. Unless you’re annoyed by how I’m looking at you. I can stop.”

“Annoyed? No. Not annoyed.” She shook her head and headed down the stairs. “I’ll be back.”

“She’s confusing, right?” Jonah asked. “Like, more than a typical woman is?” 

“Women aren’t always confusing,” Max said. “But Kinga? Kinga is confusing.”

“At least it sounds like we’ll have time to figure her out. I’m glad we won’t be parting ways any time soon. Even though she’s confusing, you and she have helped the rest of the world start to make sense again in a way it hasn’t in a while for me.” Kinga hadn’t been very far down the stairs when Jonah had posed his question, and she paused to listen for a moment before descending two flights to the room she’d been pulled into that morning. There was a pack on the bed she’d reeled against barely hours ago, and she opened it curious to find what someone else would have packed for her.

As it turned out, she knew exactly who had packed it, because no one but Synthia would have thought to get the book from her desk where she hid her ideas she hadn’t started working on yet. Most of the small things she’d had in progress were neatly packed into a deep box, and some of her favorite clothes padded between that and another box with most of the rest of the contents of her desk, including her journal and several books the Library would probably also want back at some point. Someone clearly thought she would be here for a while if they had sent along all of her projects. 

She left it all strewn across the bed and slipped out of the green and gold gown for the second time that afternoon, pulling on a soft white shirt and her most comfortable doeskin breeches. She left the emerald necklace set on top of the gown. The sendings would do something with it, like they would probably do something with everything she left here. She looked into the mirror while she quickly braided her hair again and pinned it up. Okay. Now that she didn’t feel voluptuous maybe she could focus on words and not on the pleasure Max’s attention gave her.

She snuck back up the stairs and peeked into the study to find that the studying had not proceeded in her absence. Max was standing between Jonah’s sprawled legs, leaning down with his hands on the back of the chair to kiss Jonah’s upturned face. The book Jonah had been reading was still loosely clasped in his hand, pressed against his chest, utterly forgotten in the sweetness of Max’s cool kisses. She tiptoed across the floor and ran her fingers through Jonah’s hair. Jonah jolted, which made Max lose his balance and fall into Jonah, and Kinga laughed as they instinctively clung to each other.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Max said when he lifted his head. “You shouldn’t startle him.”

“I wanted to see what would happen,” she said. “And it was cute, so I don’t regret it.” She offered Max a hand to get back to his feet and beamed at him. “We don’t have to go back to those rooms tonight, do we? You’ll let us sleep with you?”

“Now that we’re not trying to manipulate destiny by staying out of my bed, I think it’ll be okay,” Max said dryly. “If we’ve been Seen I assume we will survive.”

“We’ll be fine,” Jonah said, more confident than Kinga felt was warranted. Then again, she didn’t know what Ryelle had told him… she only knew what Ryelle had told her, and she wasn’t ready to share that particular vision yet. She got settled back in her chair and tried to focus on the book again, but now that secret was swirling through her mind. _I’ll tell them after we make the Stone,_ she told herself, not really aware that she’d pressed a hand to her stomach as her eyes scanned the page without reading a word.

It didn’t really matter whose baby it was, did it? Either way, the child would be exceptional. And she didn’t expect to have any way to tell. It was a foregone conclusion that she wanted to be taken by both of them. It was only that… if the three of them were meant to stay together, then Kinga would have to be the mother of both the next Abhorsen and the next Wallmaker, and the thought of being a conduit for so many powerful bloodlines was a bit dizzying. But the other option, of some other woman bearing children for Max or Jonah, made her head swim with nascent rage. They were _hers_ , they were meant to be hers. _Max was always meant to be mine,_ she thought, and _oh_ , that made sense. No one had Seen Jonah before he crossed the Wall. And Kinga only met Max half a day before she met Jonah. She hadn’t Seen the two of them together because the three of them were together.

“What is it?” Max asked, and she looked up at him wide-eyed. “You gasped like you found something important.”

“I didn’t read it,” she said. “I realized it.”

“So what is it?”

“I’m not defective.”

“That’s what I told you,” he said. “I thought it would take more work to get you to agree.”

“I know why I never Saw us together… because we’re with Jonah, and he was unSeeable until he crossed the Wall. I thought I would never be important to you. Now I know why I was so mistaken.”

“I’m sorry that I kept you from realizing that you’re important,” Jonah said, putting his book down in his lap and offering Kinga a contrite smile. “But I could have told you that you’re important the hour I met you.”

“That was only a few hours ago,” Kinga pointed out, and his smile widened.

“Yes, It didn’t take me long to catch on. And I feel okay about how strong my feelings are already if I don’t have to worry that you’re going to ditch me for being a dumb kid or something.”

“You’re not a dumb kid,” Max said immediately. “You’re astonishing.”

“Because I got told I was a useless daydreamer a lot in Ancelstierre.”

“That’s because you were never meant to stay there,” Kinga said. “Clearly you were meant to be in the Old Kingdom. And now you are.”

“This is all still so crazy to me,” Jonah said. “I’ve never been important to anyone before besides my mother.”

“Is she still in Bain?” Max asked, and Jonah’s smile faded.

“Her ashes are interred there,” he said. No one in their right mind buried the dead that close to the Wall for very good reason. “That’s-- that’s why I crossed the Wall. Because she died two weeks ago. So I had no reason not to listen to the voices in my head telling me to come here and start doing what I was meant for doing.”

“Oh, Jonah, I’m sorry.” Max hadn’t lost his mother very long ago, even if three years felt like a decade with how busy he was constantly kept, but Jonah had said that all his weirdness started after touching Lirael’s broken wind flutes, and now Max wondered how long that three years had felt to a confused child on the verge of becoming a man with something he couldn’t possibly understand occupying his head. Jonah shrugged, suddenly diffident, looking down at the book in his lap and tracing the title with a fingertip.

“She was sick for a while, but it got a lot worse very suddenly. When the wind blew over the Wall, I tried… uh, I tried to ease her pain. But she slipped away. I think that might have been the only relief she could get by then. I don’t think I did it wrong. I think she was just past help.” He didn’t look up when Max came over to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, or when Kinga moved the book out of his lap to occupy it herself, arms around his neck and her cheek pressed to his. “I wish I’d believed her and not the people who called her crazy for more of my life, you know? But it’s easy to believe people who tell you you’re worthless when they keep repeating it. And she never told me anything… anything real about my father. Just… fairy tales.”

“What’s a fairy tale?” Kinga asked, and Jonah shook his head.

“You know. Made-up stories about princes and princesses. Witches. Magic of all kinds. Talking animals, and… dragons and things.” Kinga and Max shared a mutually blank look.

“But princes and princesses and magic are real,” Max said. “Talking animals too, if rarely.”

“Some people call the Clayr witches,” Kinga added. “What sort of thing did your mother tell you?” Jonah didn’t answer for a moment, just buried his face in Kinga’s neck. She petted his hair gently until he lifted his head.

“That my father was royalty,” Jonah said in a small voice. “She called me her little prince even after I hit my growth spurt and shot up nine inches in a year. She told me I had a great destiny ahead of me. The whole time I was growing up, she would tell me these things, and then I’d go to school and I’d hear other kids calling her… terrible things. And I believed them and not her. I thought she was trying to make me feel better. Lying, you know. But I guess she wasn’t.”

“Oh, _Jonah_ …” He found himself embraced from both sides, and let his head fall back against Max’s chest. “I’m sorry that you had to lose her to find out the truth about yourself,” Max said. “I can relate to that. Not to that degree, but… I didn’t know what I was capable of until I couldn’t ask my mother for advice any more.”

“I still don’t know what I’m capable of,” Jonah said, letting out a slow sigh. “I still don’t know how I know any of what I know, or how I know what to do with it. There’s really not a lot that I do know. I’m only sure of a couple of things, and most of them are very new and I probably shouldn’t be so sure of them yet.”

“So what are you sure of?” Max asked, and the hint of a smile lifted Jonah’s lips.

“I’m sure that this is where I need to be. I’m sure that what we’re trying to do is the right thing. I’m sure that my mother was telling me the truth, now. And… I’ve never been in love before, but I’m still sure that this is what it feels like.” He didn’t have a moment to react before Kinga was kissing him fiercely, his face between her hands and his lip between her teeth, and his surprised squeak was stifled into her mouth. 

“This could be one of your fair tales,” Max said fondly. “The vagabond prince, the angry angel, and... whatever I’d be in the stories you tell over there.” 

“Abhorsen isn’t a big enough thing to be?” Kinga looked up at Max with one brow arched.

“ _Fairy_ tale. You’re clearly a powerful magician... and vagabond means homeless,” Jonah said. “...which, I guess, is up to you?”

“Oh Charter no, you’re not homeless,” Max said. “Not now. It’s up to you if you want to go to Belisaere and claim your bloodline, but you’re welcome here always, I promise.” Jonah looked up at Max with a slightly dopey gaze, and Max smiled down at him.

“Come on,” Kinga said, standing up and pulling Jonah’s hands until he stood as well. “We’re going outside. This room is too close and the day is too nice and the topic is too heavy to stay indoors. Let’s go see where we’re going to put the Stone.” 

The sun was starting its descent, and the light that poured down on Abhorsen’s House was honey-gold and perfectly warming. Once they made it outside, Kinga reached for Max’s hand too, and they walked down the path together, pausing when they came even with the fig tree. The North lawn wasn’t very big, and halfway between the path and the tree was barely out of reach of the shade of the tree’s branches. Kinga sat down on the spot and put both her hands flat on the grass and closed her eyes. Surely she would See something… in the right place, with the right people, under the sunshine… surely just this once she could beg her talent to work with her and it would comply…

When she opened her eyes, she found Max on her right sitting cross-legged and Jonah on her left with his gangly knees pulled up so he could rest his chin on them, more or less in a triangle. They both looked at her curiously, and she turned her face up into the sunshine. “Do you feel anything?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Max said. “It’s clear in every direction, but I have the feeling a storm’s about to break.”

“Yes,” Jonah said, and left it at that, his fingers threaded through the grass near but not touching both their hands. Max moved his hand first, just a little, his smallest finger brushing against Jonah’s, but that small touch made him sit up straight and cover as much of Jonah’s hand as his smaller one could span. 

“Kinga,” he said, and held out his hand to her. She smirked a little and touched them both at once--

_“Don’t throw our son,” Kinga sighed, and Jonah stopped with the child at his eye level, slowly lowered him, and gave Kinga an incredulous look._

_“He loves it,” he said, and she rolled her eyes. “You never stopped me throwing Kat.”_

_“I never_ caught _you throwing Kat!”_

_“Throw Kat!” Invoking her immediately summoned the toddler from where she’d been playing under the fig tree, and she barreled straight into Jonah’s ankles. “Throw Kat, Dada!”_

_“Whoa! I’m sorry, sweetie, I think Mama will yell at me if I do.” He shifted their son to one arm and scooped up their daughter with the other, aiming a sad face Kinga’s way. “Come on, angel, just one little toss?”_

“-ga? Kinga, are you okay?” The same face, but she’d just Seen it with a full, neat beard and a hangdog pleading expression that didn’t match Jonah’s current uneven stubble and obvious concern. She blinked a couple of times and then nodded.

“I’m fine. Sorry, yes, I’m all right.”

“What did you See?” Max asked, and she focused on him and hesitated. 

“...I didn't See you,” she said. “That's the first time I haven't Seen you since my very first vision.” There was no way he could get more pale, but he looked shaken to hear her words.

“So what _did_ you See?” 

“The Stone, here. Myself and Jonah… and two children. A boy and a girl.” 

“Oh!” Jonah‘s eyes widened, and he straightened up from his slouch. Max looked stunned, not sure what to say. She wished she'd said something earlier, and she _had_ been planning to tell them… but she couldn't withhold this when she had the vision right there with her hands in theirs. “Maybe you could See it because they're his children?” 

“They called you Dada,” she said. 

“So? Maybe he's Papa.”

“I'd rather be Dada,” Max said. 

“Okay, I'll be Papa then,” Jonah said with a smile.

“I don't think you're taking this seriously,” Kinga said, and pulled her hands back. 

“I think deciding what we'd like our children to call us is pretty serious,” Max said. “What were you doing in the vision?”

“Jonah wanted to throw the boy in the air and I wouldn't let him… And then the girl wanted to be thrown too.” 

“I mean, I am pretty good at catching things,” Jonah said, holding up both wide hands. “I wouldn't do it if I wasn't sure I'd catch them.”

“That's not the point! The point is that you shouldn't toss babies!” 

“Well, you didn't say he was a baby,” Jonah said. “I wouldn’t toss a baby. But a little kid? Sure.”

“I don’t think you’re helping your own case,” Max said. The worry lines around his eyes were clearer when he looked at Kinga, hesitant but still needing to know more. “So… you didn’t See me. What does that mean?”

“It probably means you were out on Abhorsen business,” Kinga said, willing herself to believe it. “It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re just… gone, by then.” She didn’t want him to see how unnerved she was by the lack of him in her Sight, but she was pretty sure she was failing from how both Max and Jonah were looking at her.

“Even though all your other visions have involved me?” He sounded doubtful. She didn’t blame him. All she could do was reach for his hand.

“I don’t want to think about you not being around when we only just finally met,” she said softly. “Anyways, we were still here, and I don’t think we could stay here without you. The House would belong to the next Abhorsen, we’d have to leave.”

“You can’t die until your child grows up,” Jonah said. “There can’t be no Abhorsen, right?”

“The mantle would pass to a relative,” Max said. “A cousin, probably. Actually, if you’re Prince Sameth’s son, you’d be a possibility to receive it. Since he was the son of an Abhorsen.”

“No offense, but I don’t want your job,” Jonah said. “I want you to do your job for a very, very long time. And to know that any time you go out to put the Dead back down, you’ll be coming home to us.”

“That sounds perfect to me,” Max said, a little wistfully. “Too perfect to be real.”

“It was just one vision,” Kinga said. “It might not mean anything. It might be a reality that doesn’t come to pass. Or Max not being in it might just mean that he’s away. It’s nothing to worry about.” The more she told herself that, the more she convinced herself it was true. Max still looked skeptical, but Jonah bought it completely. He offered Max a smile and a squeeze of his hand.

“Well, one way or another, that’s not a future we need to worry about for years yet, right?”

“You did look older,” Kinga said. “Maybe around Max’s age now.”

“That’s like a decade away. Plenty of time to live our lives before then.”

“Someone’s an optimist,” Max said, and Jonah shrugged.

“I have to believe that things will work out for the best or I’d be too scared of failure to do anything at all,” he said. “And I can’t do nothing. So I just have to have faith that the universe will unfold as it should.”

“Charter willing,” Kinga said, and she looked at the grass between the three of them, imagining the Great Charter Stone there where it had been in her vision, towering higher than any Charter Stone she’d seen before, but still not as tall as the ancient fig tree beside it. She took Jonah’s hand and ran her fingers over the scar across his broad palm, then laced their fingers together. Soon. Not today, but she knew it would be soon when the vision she’d had in their arms came to pass, clasped hands bleeding Charter marks onto the grass, building a nexus of the Charter out of their blood which was so integral to the Charter’s power and purity.

A bell rang, and the three of them looked at the house, Max a bit more sharply as the sound of any bell sent him into alert. It was a Charter-sending standing by the front door, ringing a silver bell, and after a moment Max laughed. 

“The eighth bell,” he said. “Yrael the Ravenous.” Jonah and Kinga gave him blank looks, and he shook his head as he got to his feet. “Sorry. Family joke. You’ll get it eventually, we’ve just been together such a brief amount of time yet. Anyways, that’s the dinner bell. Are you hungry? It’s salmon season and the sendings might be senile but they’ve got that much nailed.”

“Yes,” Kinga said immediately. She’d only picked at the lunch they’d had in the study, and salmon was her favorite. He pulled her up from the grass, and then they both tugged Jonah’s hands, not very helpfully, but Jonah didn’t dissuade them. They walked back to the house as they’d walked away from it, hand-in-hand-in-hand.


End file.
